


Nothing Is Beyond Repair

by MoreThanSlightly (cadignan)



Series: Nothing Is Beyond Repair [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: AKA Emotional Edging, Alcohol, Alien Cultural Differences, Allura (Voltron) is Alive, Angst, Bar Room Brawl, Bathing/Washing, Bodyguard, Canon Is Whatever We Want It To Be Tracy, Competitive Kissing, Drunkenness, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Hair Braiding, Hair Washing, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Murder Mystery, Mutual Pining, No Giant Robot Fights, Oral Sex, Peace, Politics, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Season/Series 08, Public Display of Affection, Sexual Tension, Sharing a Bed, Shiro (Voltron) Is Divorced, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-24 21:08:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 41,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17711615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cadignan/pseuds/MoreThanSlightly
Summary: Seven years after the Paladins sacrifice Voltron and Atlas to save the universe, Krolia's still doing the messy work of decolonizing the Galra Empire. When she's assigned an especially dangerous planet, she calls Keith.Krolia can't allow the Voltron Coalition diplomat she's working with to come to harm, and no one knows more about protecting Shiro than Keith.





	1. died and went to work

**Author's Note:**

> So Voltron hurt my feelings in December, and then I had to spend all of January writing this fic. It plays fast and loose with the events of season 8, but treats Shiro and Keith's lack of communication in that season as canon, as well as Shiro's wedding. Why take some of the worst aspects of season 8 into account? Because fuck you, Dreamworks, we can fix anything.
> 
> Allura is alive, though, because I refuse to accept any outcome where she isn't.
> 
> And because I know this matters to a lot of people, I want to clarify that while Shiro did get married in the backstory of this fic, he got divorced soon after and there was no infidelity on anyone's part. I'm also not interested in assigning blame solely to one character in the pairing; I'm interested in them working their shit out and living happily ever after.
> 
> This fic is finished (about 40k total) and will be posted chapter by chapter over the next few days as I do final edits.
> 
> Thank you very much to verity for both indispensable advice and enthusiasm, to ataraxetta and augustbird for cheerleading, and to leftishark and wincechesters for cheerleading and consulting on fake science <3

After Shiro’s wedding, Keith disappeared.

Not from Krolia’s life. Her son is good, but no one is that good.

She drums her fingers on the table, playing the impatient tourist waiting for a shuttle to dock. If anyone _were_ good enough to slip out of her sight, they’d probably live here on Taranis. There are two different sentient species native to this planet, the Tyen and the Lawafluye, both impossibly stealthy. Because Krolia’s life is never easy, they won’t stop murdering each other’s leaders. She’s supposed to be decolonizing this place and making reparations. Instead she’s solving a locked-room mystery.

Did the Tyen and the Lawafluye hate each other before millennia of Galra exploitation, or does the empire bear that blame, too?

Krolia gives the station a leisurely glance. The central hub of Vi Tyenaver is like so many other thousands of shuttle stations around the galaxy: tinny loudspeaker announcements bouncing off the metal surfaces, travelers rushing to catch rides or huddled around maps and schedules, a little hut off to the side selling something hot and deep-fried. Keith will stand out here, small, unfurred, unfeathered, unscaled, tail-less, wing-less, and crest-less as he is, but he’s damn good at vanishing when he wants to, and he would take smug pleasure in sneaking up on his own mother. Krolia can’t allow that.

She sips her beverage. Something hot and bitter from the fry shop, muddy and reddish. Its presence on the table next to her makes her look unremarkable, one more person waiting among hundreds of others. She won’t be drinking any more than she has to.

The Galra are not well-loved in Vi Tyenaver, or on the whole of Taranis, or anywhere else they once ruled. Krolia can’t blame anyone for that, but people get murdered with alarming frequency in Vi Tyenaver, and she’d prefer not to defend herself from any violent anti-imperial sentiment right now.

It’s been too long since she’s seen her son.

Keith will arrive on public transport from one of the busy routes, even if he has to go far out of his way to do it. He won’t rush off the ship. He’ll take his time so he can disembark in a crowd. He’ll stop to study the display of arrival and departure times, because it’s a good moment to stand still and surreptitiously take stock of the surroundings.

Ah. There he is. Not dressed like a Blade, which isn’t surprising. Keith rarely takes jobs that require the uniform these days. His kind of work is easier in street clothes, and today he’s draped in layers of black and dark grey, his hair long and loose, a small black bag hanging off one shoulder. From long years of observation, Krolia recognizes the shape of the blade under his jacket, but no one else will.

 _Found you_ , Krolia messages him. She watches him read the message and turn steadily until he sees her.

He smiles.

Krolia smiles back.

It’s been awful, witnessing her child sabotage his own life, but they still have this. This much, he permits her. He always smiles when he sees her and he always comes when she calls.

She requested his help with this one. It’s too damn complicated here, and she’s a public figure now, working in the full light of day. (On grim, cloudy Taranis, that’s not saying much.) But Keith has always had a knack for moving in the shadows, and he’s only grown more skilled in the years since his disappearance from public life.

After they’d sacrificed Voltron and Atlas to save reality, some last vestige of duty kept him tethered to Earth. Then Shiro married someone else, and Keith drifted off into the universe like gravity had never touched him. The other Paladins asked Krolia about him at first. What had happened? Where had he gone? Would he ever come back?

Keith didn’t want to be found. Krolia’s affection for the Paladins couldn’t outweigh her loyalty to him. She evaded their questions. She lied. She didn’t break, not even when Allura had taken her aside in private, her eyes glittering with anger and unshed tears, and said _it wasn’t only Shiro. He was_ our _friend, too._

As if Krolia didn’t know that.

She didn’t like to lose things, Allura. Krolia sympathized. But she’d made her choice a long time ago.

Eventually, as the years passed, Allura and the others stopped asking. Did they intuit that Krolia knew and refused to tell them, or did they assume Keith had abandoned his own mother? It didn’t really matter, since Krolia couldn’t discuss it. That was part of the unspoken bargain she’d made to keep Keith in her life. She wouldn’t speak to the Paladins about him, nor to him about them. It was a high price, but Krolia had paid higher.

She keeps her eyes on Keith, unwilling to let him out of her sight. He’s wending through the crowd, almost to her table now. He won’t have such a soft gaze for her when he finds out why he’s here.

 

* * *

 

His mother is a fucking sphinx.

Krolia takes Keith on a meandering stroll around the city, chatting about the _bio gothic_ architecture and the local history as if all the grapevines twisted into cathedral spires aren’t blackened and dead from Galra exploitation. She’s a fount of information about Tyenaver culture—the tall, bat-winged species—and how it differs from Lawafluyed culture. The Lawafluye are the iridescent feathered lizard ones. Keith did his homework. He doesn’t need his mom to lecture him.

She’s less forthcoming on the subject of the mission. Every time he asks a question, she turns down some alley and exclaims over another narrow, ornamented tower constructed out of a lacework of black vines. The city’s full of alleys and towers. They’re losing their charm fast.

A prominent Lawafluyed leader, Yuma, was found dead in a locked room last month. The same for a Tyenaver leader, Ah Sho Dwa Fe Le, who was rumored to be in the running for prime minister after the dismantling of the interim Galra government, only that murder was two weeks ago. Both victims were members of the Joint Parliament, the group negotiating with the Galra for the independence of Taranis. His mother hasn’t mentioned either case yet.

Eventually she leads him to the apartment she’s renting. The building’s obviously Galra construction, with sharp, clean lines, and it’s an eyesore against the ornate backdrop of Vi Tyenaver. But since they’re climbing fifteen flights of stairs, Keith feels grateful to have metal and concrete beneath his feet, rather than vines that look like they might reach out and snatch his ankles.

Kosmo materializes in the apartment after they enter. The wolf’s not much for shuttles or cities. He puts his head under Keith’s hand and Keith scratches behind his ears. Kosmo saunters off to curl up in a corner, already at home.

Taranis is a humid, foggy planet, every window permanently steamed. Krolia crosses the apartment to a glass door with its view obscured. She slides it open and gestures for Keith to join her on the balcony. There’s traffic and industrial noise grinding out of the city below, the air feels like a wet weight on his skin, and the ground is still pockmarked from bombardment and littered with debris, but traveling has taught Keith that even the worst places have something to recommend them, and this must be it.

All that particulate in the air makes for a glorious sunset. From this high up, nothing blocks the expansive view. The sky is red bleeding into orange, color so thick you could reach out and touch it. Not so different from the desert of his childhood, which she would know, of course.

So Krolia’s about to tell him something he won’t like. Keith pre-empts her, impatient. “Do you need me to kill someone?”

Krolia frowns. There’s no one listening to them out here, high above the ground and just outside the apartment Krolia sweeps for bugs twice daily, but she still doesn’t like to talk about the work in such blunt terms. Too bad.

“No. The opposite.”

Is that disapproval in her tone? Keith ignores it. The Blade no longer hands out assassination assignments, but he’s killed people before and he might have to again. Krolia’s killed her fair share of people in battle, and when you get right down to it, the war never really ended. The galaxy’s a complicated place. Sometimes judiciously applied violence makes it a simpler one.

“So I’m keeping someone alive, then? Who is it?”

“Did you bring a Blade uniform?” she counters.

A question for a question. He’ll never get anywhere, interrogating her like this. Just to be contrary, he says, “Do I need one?”

“Yes. Go put it on.”

“So we’re going now. To do some part of this mission you’ve told me almost nothing about.”

“I’ve told you everything you need to know,” Krolia says. “Diplomatic work like this is delicate. Appearances matter. Keep that in mind.”

“You want me to stand around and look intimidating while fancy assholes eat hors d’oeuvres. Got it.” Keith rolls his eyes. “You could have had anyone do this, Mom. I was two quadrants away.”

Instead of defending her choices, she says, “Before you change into your uniform, can I braid your hair?”

Suspicious. “This place has seen two recent high-profile murders—likely political assassinations—and… you’re concerned about my hair?”

When hurt flashes in her eyes, he knows he should take it back. Galra groom each other to show affection. She just wants to touch him. He forgets, sometimes, how to talk to people who care about him. The number has dwindled to one; he doesn’t get much practice.

Krolia’s not making a comment on how much time has passed since he last visited a salon (years) or on the way he cuts his bangs (a knife). Keith is capable of braiding his hair, but wears it loose most of the time. The length is useful. It’s better for skulking if it curtains his face.

And it hides the scar.

“It’s fine,” Krolia says. She steps back inside the apartment and Keith follows her, sliding the balcony door shut.

“No, do it,” he tells her. He sits on the couch and lifts his hair in his hands. “I want you to.”

She’s pleased, and he submits himself to her attentions—a wide-toothed comb through his hair and then her fingers separating the weight of it into three sections. Other than Kosmo, no one has touched him in a long time. Not even violently, since he ends fights before anyone lands a hit. Certainly not with affection.

It doesn’t matter. He’s been doing important work.

Krolia moves with tidy efficiency. She could take more time if she wanted, but Keith says nothing. If he’d grown up with her, she would have done things like this for him all the time.

She must be thinking something similar. Out of the blue, she says, “You know I love you.”

“Yes.”

“Keith, this mission… I hope you’ll forgive me. I had to make some hard choices.”

That’s nothing new. He clenches his jaw, then consciously relaxes it, not wanting Krolia to notice. “I thought it was just standing around during some talks? Should be easy, right?”

She hums in response.

It doesn’t bode well, Krolia bringing this up before the mission. But what’s he going to do, back out because it might be difficult and dangerous? The whole galaxy’s difficult and dangerous. There’s no escape.

Krolia ties off his braid and kisses the top of his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title is a line from Neko Case's song "Bad Luck." Also, I'm on [twitter](http://twitter.com/_cadignan).


	2. too late to live in your heart, too late to burn all your civilian clothes

Keith doesn’t do much official, on-the-books work for the Blade of Marmora these days—humanitarian relief is not the best use of his skillset—but the uniform still fits. His presence at this event will be a silent gesture of support for Krolia’s work here, trying to extricate the Galra from this planet without leaving the two resident species to kill each other over scraps.

Keith’s willing to help her, but he doesn’t hold out much hope for peace on Taranis. The Galra scorched this place. It would take a miracle to restore life here, and the galaxy’s short on miracle workers. Keith only knows of one, and last he heard, she was on Earth.

He wonders, briefly, if Lance and Allura have kids by now, and what they’re like. Then he shakes it off and strides up the steps of the Governor’s Mansion, another work of Galra architecture in stone and metal, an imposing display of alien power. He hopes the locals tear it down when they get their home back.

Beyond the front steps, there’s a grand, domed atrium, and Krolia is already crossing the threshold, the black half-cape draped over her suit fluttering behind her.

Krolia gets announced, which is a normal part of her life as a Galra ambassador. She breezes through it and inclines her head to the outgoing Galra governor, Zendig, who’s seated on a dais opposite the entrance, and the lieutenant governor, Hurog, beside him. Zendig frowns at Krolia’s bow. Probably missing the good old days of “Vrepit Sa!” like the corrupt piece of shit he is.

Keith hangs back by the doorway. Krolia’s running the show here. He’s just security.

When Krolia has finished, Keith slips through the door. He sidesteps the carpet running the length of the room toward the governor’s dais and opts for the tile floor, which puts him inches from the Galra herald when he shouts, “Keith Kogane, currently of the Blade of Marmora, a Paladin of Voltron!”

Keith cringes. No one’s called him that in years.

He just barely stops his hand from clutching the hilt of his blade. There’s nothing to fight here. No matter how many wings or scales are in sight, it’s just a room full of diplomats and cocktail servers—all of whom are staring at him.

A crunch of glass shattering breaks the silence. Then it’s so quiet Keith can hear the tinkling fall of the shards against the floor.

Keith turns, his stomach in knots, a premonition of what he’ll see coalescing in his mind. That glass broke _before_ it hit the floor.

Who could crush a champagne flute in their hand without flinching or yelping?

He already knows the answer, and he doesn’t want to look, but his body’s in motion and he can’t stop it. He can only think of Krolia not answering his questions. If she’d brought Keith here to protect some Tyenaver or Lawafluyed diplomat, the name wouldn’t have meant anything to him. Keith is here to protect someone he knows. Someone Krolia didn’t tell him about.

Takashi Shirogane is staring at him from across the room.

He’s seven years older and no less beautiful in a black suit and a shirt as white as his hair. There’s a puddle of champagne spreading around his fancy shoes and he hasn’t stepped away from it.

Keith wishes he had a glass to crush. Instead his hand clenches around nothing, and his body goes numb.

He can’t even turn around to glare at Krolia for doing this to him. Everyone’s eyes are on him. The only thing he can do is trudge down the carpet, give a jerky nod to Zendig and Hurog, and then step to the side and search for the least obtrusive exit.

Shiro has the audacity and the bad taste to appear beside the dais as soon as Keith is done paying his awful little obeisance.

 _Appearances matter_ , Krolia had said. She’d meant _don’t storm out of the room when you see him_ , but she hadn’t said that, because then Keith would have had the sense not to show up in the first place. He’s managed to stay at least a system away from Shiro for the past seven years. Fuck, he’s an idiot. She tricked him. He’s going to kill her. This is the second worst betrayal of Keith’s life.

And for what? Why did Krolia do this to him? Why is Shiro even here?

More importantly, what’s Keith going to say to him?

“Keith,” Shiro says, with such warmth it’s painful. Like they’re old friends. Like he’s happy about this.

Keith swallows around something in his throat. “Shiro.”

There’s no ring on Shiro’s left ring finger. Keith hates himself for looking. The sight sparks a stupid flare of resentment— _you were supposed to be happy, I left so you could be happy with him_ —and an even stupider flare of hope.

“It’s good to see you,” Shiro says, barely a quaver in his voice. But he broke that glass. Shiro wasn’t any more informed about this than Keith was.

Krolia tricked him, too. Or someone did. That doesn’t make Keith feel any better.

Shiro moves like he’s going in for a hug, and Keith dodges. Settling a hand on his arm instead, Shiro murmurs, “Everyone here thinks we’re friends, okay?” so only Keith can hear it.

That combination—an acknowledgement that they’re _not_ friends paired with Shiro’s lips that close to his ear—slides between Keith’s ribs like a knife. He should resist Shiro tugging on his arm and leading him away from the dais, but he’s reeling.

Across the room where Shiro had been standing, a Lawafluyed server is cleaning up the broken glass on the floor. From the white feathered crest on the server’s head, Keith determines they’re the third sex. Lawafluyed reproduction requires three partners. He read about it on the shuttle.

He can’t look at Shiro or think about how they’re touching. When Shiro stops them in a secluded spot near the wall, Keith coldly removes his arm from Shiro’s grip and takes a step back.

“The others are arriving soon,” Shiro says. A peace offering. His lips quirk, almost a smile, but his eyes are wary. A man as big as Shiro shouldn’t be allowed to look like a twig-limbed fawn taking its first trembling steps. His thick eyebrows draw together and his dark eyes grow huge and pleading. He cants his whole body forward.

It’s so effective it makes Keith angry. Mostly with himself, for his foolish reaction to that voice, that face, that body. Why does it still work on him? Why haven’t the years and the distance diminished Shiro's beauty? His power?

Oh, but he’s angry with Shiro, too. Has anger to spare.  _Don’t pretend to be vulnerable_ , he wants to shout. _You_ broke _my_ heart.

“It’s part of our negotiations,” Shiro continues as if Keith isn’t icing him out. “Honestly, I think when the Joint Parliament asked for all the Paladins to show up, they were trying to embarrass Krolia by asking for something impossible. A few members were hoping to claim the Galra weren’t making a serious effort. Then they could scuttle the deal.”

“Did you _know_?” Keith demands.

They make eye contact. Shiro swallows. Quietly, after a long silence, he says, “I knew the others would come.” He slides his gaze away.

If Keith were feeling rational, he could admit that makes sense. By his own design, none of them even knew he was alive. He’d sworn Krolia to silence, and she’d kept her promises until now.

Keith doesn’t feel remotely rational. He feels like shit. So he’s the unreliable one. The one who had to be tricked into coming here to support this fragile diplomatic effort. He didn’t used to be this way, and for the first time in years, he wishes—feverishly, furiously—that he could be that other person, the Keith who believed in saving the universe.

Shiro is still looking at him, cautious but hopeful, like he wants to set things right. There’s nothing to mend.

 _You wouldn’t like the person I’ve become_ , Keith almost says. But Shiro hadn’t liked the person he’d been seven years ago, either. Not enough to marry him. So that doesn’t matter.

Instead he casts around for a more legitimate objection. There are plenty of reasons. He can’t stay here. It won’t work. He comes up with, “ _You_ don’t need a bodyguard.”

Shiro smiles.

Damn it. Keith hadn’t meant to compliment him.

“I’m mediating the negotiations, and two people have already been murdered. Krolia suspects I’ll be the next target,” Shiro said. “The situation is precarious enough. It puts everyone more at ease if I have some security.”

Keith wants to protest that it doesn’t put _him_ more at ease, but he can’t get the words out. As much as it hurts to be around Shiro, Keith would still die before he let anyone lay a finger on him. If Shiro’s in danger, Keith has to stay.

“Diplomats aren’t really supposed to fight their own fights,” Shiro continues. “It’s been a long time since I’ve engaged in hand-to-hand.”

It doesn’t _look_ like it’s been a long time, not with the way that suit fits him. Shiro’s as fit and gorgeous as he was seven years ago. He’s thirty-five. Shouldn’t he have gone soft around the middle by now? Shouldn’t he have the beginnings of some wrinkles? For an instant, Keith pictures Shiro older, softer, with crinkles at the corners of his eyes, and is struck with the unwelcome knowledge that he’d be just as weak for that Shiro as he is for the one standing in front of him. Weaker, maybe. He’ll never be free.

“And I’ve been told I’m an old-timer,” Shiro adds, a smile playing around his lips.

Keith doesn’t smile back. “Don’t,” he says. “I’ll do my job. I’m a professional. But… don’t.”

“Keith—”

Keith shakes his head. He can ignore what his body wants. But Shiro being nice to him, joking around like nothing’s wrong? That will ruin him. Keith’s been down that path: it ends with Shiro marrying somebody else.

Keith doesn’t have much going for him, these days. No friends. Just Kosmo and the occasional visit with his mom. Being ruthlessly effective at his job is all he’s got, and he won’t let his feelings for Shiro get in the way.

“I won’t let anyone hurt you,” Keith says, and it comes out low and scratchy. He intends to add _don’t ask me for more than that_ , but before he can, Shiro fixes him with a look.

“I know,” he says. “You won’t let anyone else hurt me.”

Keith narrows his eyes. The change in the sentence is so small that it could almost be meaningless. Innocuous. But it feels deliberate. What the fuck does Shiro mean _anyone else_? Before Keith can ask, Shiro walks away from him.

 

* * *

 

Shiro shouldn’t have said it, that vicious little jab at Keith. He’s above that kind of behavior, usually; his divorce had been perfectly civil. Amicable, even.

It hadn’t been amicable with Keith. It hadn’t been anything at all.

A Lawafluyed server, clothed only in pearly scales, ushers Shiro to his place at the long dining table. The thing about comparing alien species to Earth species is that, even knowing he shouldn’t, Shiro can’t stop himself. He takes in the sight of a giant bipedal scaly thing with a tail and a feathered crest and an elongated snout, and his brain spits out _lizard_. Same thing for the slightly more human-looking, grey-skinned, skeletally elegant Tyen. Shiro’s automatic reaction is _that one has bat wings_.

At best, this kind of comparison is misleading. More often than not, it’s offensive.

At worst, Shiro pokes his fork into the blackish loaf on his dinner plate—it crumbles into unidentifiable pieces—and thinks _lizards and bats eat insects._

Years of living in space should have inured him to eating unfamiliar foods, but tonight his stomach is turning for other reasons than a meatloaf made of space flies.

No one had told Shiro that Keith would be here. Krolia had said “maybe five Paladins will be enough,” and Shiro had taken the absence of Keith’s name as a sign. Krolia only promised things she could deliver.

She’d promised him a security detail. Shiro had shrugged, understanding the necessity, expecting some big taciturn alien who’d follow him around and glare at anyone who approached him.

The thought is almost enough to make him laugh. His guess had been damn close. Krolia had delivered a _small_ taciturn alien instead.

Keith’s expression had made it clear that he wouldn’t have come if he’d known. Shiro feels that way and doesn’t; his heart is a sealed box and unless it’s opened, no one will know if he’s happy or unhappy. Until then, he’ll be both at once.

Keith had looked… well, he’s always been beautiful. That’s a meaningless description when it comes to Keith. He’s different in a few obvious ways: another inch or two of height, maybe; the Senior Blades uniform, its panels of stiff purple fabric crisscrossing his chest, which is broader than Shiro remembers but still of a piece with the rest of Keith’s lean, athletic body; his hair far longer and hanging over his shoulder in a braid; the scar on his face faded but still present.

Technology has made it simple to remove scars. Shiro had considered having it done for himself, but he’d found himself unexpectedly emotional about it. He had so few connections to his old life, his original body. The scar, even though it’s the witch’s work, helped Shiro recognize himself. But why wouldn’t Keith have undergone the process?

Keith is different in some way Shiro finds harder to name, too. He’s always been prickly, standoffish, but now he seems… hard. Intimidating. Unhappy, maybe. What has he been doing, all these years?

Shiro can’t think about this. He has work to do.

The prospect of dinner is unappetizing with his throat so tight. It would be unforgivably rude if he refused to eat, and short of public vomiting, there’s nothing he can do to get out of this. No one will accept that he’s not hungry because he’s full to the brim with unspoken words.

 _I wasn’t sure you were still alive_ first among them, and _you hurt me too_ second, followed, perplexingly, by _I missed you so much_. Somewhere, taking up too much space inside him, he can feel the sharp edges of _I think my marriage fell apart because I was in love with you and I realized it too late_. Keith won’t want to hear any of that. Shiro’s not sure he can say it, anyway.

“You’re preoccupied, ambassador,” says the Tyen to his left. The placard in front of her plate identifies her as Oo Nwee Nwa Ef Wad, which means she should be addressed formally as Tyen Nwee, and that if she makes a friendly overture, Shiro can call her Nwa.

She lays one long, thin, grey hand on his sleeve. Is that a friendly overture? Maybe not. Shiro had been dismayed to learn that both species on Taranis had intense social codes promoting interpersonal touch, and even further dismayed that Coran had sounded so nostalgic while telling him about that.

Tyen Nwee is seated on a backless stool and has her wings tucked neatly behind her. Unlike the Lawafluye, the Tyen wear clothes—this cultural difference had been emphasized in a pre-departure briefing where Krolia had insisted on Earth and Altean formal wear for the Paladins, to make sure they weren’t favoring one species over the other by dressing (or _not_ dressing) in local garb. Tyen Nwee is draped in whispering layers of grey and black. Shiro is still certain she’s a female, because the Tyen consider males ill-suited to diplomacy. Krolia had managed to get Shiro invited to the Summit anyway, even though Allura could easily have taken his place.

 _I have other work for her to do_ , Krolia had said with finality. Shiro had known better than to ask.

Tyen Nwee is a little taller than Shiro. It’s always funny to come to a planet where his height is merely average.

“Worried about something?” asks the Lawafluye to his right. The placard in front of the plate says _Skama_. A member of the Joint Parliament, and male, if Shiro remembers his reading correctly. The three Lawafluyed sexes are hard for him to distinguish—similar in size and shape, with only subtleties of behavior and coloring to differentiate them. Despite their nudity, their genitals don’t show outside the body. And even if Shiro could see those, they’re no guarantee.

“I had to regrow an arm once,” Skama says. “I was in a bad mood the whole time.”

Oh. Things are getting personal already.

“I’m just tired from my travel,” Shiro says, polite and evasive. In the interest of clarity, he adds, “Humans can’t regrow body parts after we lose them. My prosthetic works perfectly fine, though. It can even do a few things my other arm can’t. I’m glad to have it.”

“We don’t do that, either,” Tyen Nwee says in a tone of mild distaste, like Skama had brought up going to the bathroom.

Shiro is happy to provide a change of subject. “Tell me, which parts of Vi Tyenaver should I visit? I only saw a little of the city on my way in.”

“It’s not what it once was,” Tyen Nwee says. _Shit_. The topic Shiro had thought was neutral is, of course, actually fraught. Their devastated city is a source of sorrow.

“I know a nice place,” Skama says. The Lawafluye have long reptilian snouts, so they can’t smile in the way that humans can, but Shiro could swear Skama is grinning at him. He’s leaning in close and now there’s a four-fingered hand on Shiro’s shoulder—not the metal implanted in it, but the suit fabric covering his skin. “A nice, warm place.”

The Lawafluye are cold-blooded. Skama is deliberately feeling the heat from Shiro’s body. An instant later, he replaces his hand with his head. His blue feathered crest brushes Shiro’s neck. Shiro stiffens.

Something settles around his waist. Shiro risks a glance at the table and sees both of Skama’s scaled hands. Not an arm, then. A tail.

If Shiro were still wearing a wedding ring, he could decline what is obviously a sexual invitation without hurting any feelings. But his sad mistake of a marriage had barely lasted six months, and the only part of it he misses is that he no longer wears a visible excuse for turning down offers.

He picks up his drink and gulps. A regrettable choice. It’s explosively sweet, and, as becomes clear only seconds later, of an alcoholic strength intended for larger, hardier species. Shiro sets his glass down unsteadily.

In a desperate moment, Shiro searches the room for a friendly face. He finds Keith instead, stationed with his back to the wall. Keith keeps his face professional and unreadable, but his lips draw to the side when he sees both of Shiro’s dinner companions touching him. Is that sympathy in his eyes?

“Skama,” Tyen Nwee chastises. She puts her hand back on the table, prim. “We were all informed about the human need for _personal space_.”

It hadn’t stopped her from putting a hand on his arm, but Shiro refrains from saying so.

Skama lifts his head from Shiro’s shoulder. “I barely touched him. And why wouldn’t he want to come home with me? My lair is warm and my mates and I are good hosts. It would have been rude not to offer.”

“I have a room here at the Governor’s Mansion,” Shiro says, faint.

“You know that’s not how human culture works,” Tyen Nwee says to Skama. “They’re extremely particular about mating.”

“Only if they already have a mate,” Skama protests. He looks at Shiro, but thankfully keeps his hands and the rest of his body to himself. “Do you?”

“I, uh—” Shiro thought they were going to talk about borders and trade and reparations from the Galra. Maybe the process for amending the new constitution. He closes his eyes to think for a moment, and when he opens them, he catches Keith watching him again.

Don’t read into it. He’s not worried about you. He’s just doing his job.

“Oh, it’s _that_ one,” Skama says, following Shiro’s gaze. “I saw you touch that one. I thought you were just saying hello, but you haven’t touched anyone else since you arrived. I understand now. I guess when you’re so warm all by yourself, you only need one mate.”

Shiro should clear up this misunderstanding.

“Is that one a male? I didn’t know humans did that!” Tyen Nwee says, with something in her breathy voice that Shiro hopes is delight. “My partner is also a female. It’s not very common for us. Is it very common for you? Skama is mated to a female and a _sio_ , as is traditional. The three of them have hatched many eggs together.”

Well, at least _this_ isn’t lying, although it is unexpected conversational territory. “Yes, I’m gay. I like men, that is. It’s widely accepted among humans.”

Tyen Nwee pats his arm like she’s pleased with him.

“He’s so small, though,” Skama says, skeptical. “He can’t be very warm.”

“He is, actually,” Shiro says. He flushes with embarrassment. He’d been doing so well neither confirming nor denying their hypotheses. Why did he say that out loud? It’s been more than seven years since he last hugged Keith. He shouldn’t remember it so well.

Thankfully neither Tyen Nwee nor Skama remarks on the color of Shiro’s cheeks. Skama leans in, briefly touching their bodies together, then says, “I’m happy for you.”

“Thanks,” Shiro says and reaches blindly for his drink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is a line from The New Pornographers' song "This Is the World of the Theater."


	3. a constant condition of falling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tiny content warnings: drunkenness, vomiting.

Dinner drags on for lifetimes. Keith tries to stay focused on useful things—studying each person, wondering which of them is capable of taking a life, and what might motivate them—but in truth, he watches Shiro.

Technically, that’s the job.

It’s painful, discovering that even when he’s spent seven years hardening his heart against future assaults, a few hours in a room with Shiro is all it takes to weaken his defenses. They haven’t even spoken. Just watching Shiro politely fend off an alien’s affections is enough to awaken all Keith’s old habits. Is Shiro okay? Will it cause a planetary incident if Keith interrupts? Should he interrupt anyway?

 _Stop it_ , he reminds himself. _He hurt you._

Standing guard in the Governor’s Mansion during a state dinner is a bad time for Keith to learn that he can be angry with Shiro and still—somehow, absurdly—in love with him. It’s one thing to acknowledge that Shiro is a gorgeous specimen of a man and that it’s only natural to feel physical attraction around him. It’s another thing entirely to watch a blush bloom in Shiro’s cheeks from thirty paces away, tomato pink against the brilliant white of his hair, and feel such a flood of yearning and tenderness that Keith forgets, for an instant, all the years that have gone wrong between them. They’re not together. They’re not even friends. Shiro doesn’t—has never loved him back.

All evening, it’s like that. A moth to a goddamn flame. Will it burn me this time?

There’s a reason Keith spent the past seven years tracking down Galra war criminals in the wilds of the galaxy. It was easier than reckoning with his stupid heart.

Dinner ends at last and the guests disperse. Keith waits for Shiro, driven by an uncomfortable mixture of duty and desire. He’s supposed to make sure Shiro gets back to his room safely. It’s his job.

Shiro’s still sporting that blush, a sure sign that he’s tipsy. He slings an arm around Keith’s shoulders. “Sorry,” he says, not sounding sorry in the least.

Keith goes stiff, wanting the touch, hating himself for wanting it. Shiro doesn’t notice. He leans heavily on Keith and they make halting progress toward the door. Shiro is speaking in what he probably thinks is a conspiratorial whisper. “Keith. Keith.”

Walking and talking at the same time is too much for Shiro. He swings his weight around, stranding them at the edge of the dining room. As he speaks, he misses Keith’s ear and accidentally delivers his secret to Keith’s cheek, the warm tip of his nose bumping Keith’s temple. His breath is sweet with whatever he’s been drinking. “I have to touch you. It’s for _diplomacy_.”

Keith adjusts his assessment. Shiro is _blasted_.

“Your hair smells good.” Shiro rests his nose in Keith’s hair like it belongs there, then runs a hand down the length of Keith’s braid, tugging on it. “I like this. I missed you.”

Keith tries to swallow. There’s something blocking his throat. He shepherds Shiro out the door and into the hallway, where they’ll have a modicum of privacy. Shiro doesn’t let go of his hair.

After two minutes of Keith guiding him along, Shiro takes notice of the long grey hallway. “Hey, where are we going?”

“You’re going to bed.”

“Are we lost? I got lost earlier. How do you know the way?”

“I memorized the floorplan of this place at dinner.”

“Oh.”

Keith can’t tell if that’s acceptance or disappointment in Shiro’s tone and he’s not thinking about it. They have to turn left and then right into another corridor. This place is gigantic.

Two turns in a row distracts Shiro and he starts to talk again. “At dinner, you know, the lizard—” Shiro pauses, abashed. “I’m not supposed to think of them that way. I mean, Ten Nuwee and… Skama. But anyway. They’re supposed to hate each other. Their whole species are enemies. They’ve been trying to kill each other for thousands of years. And they don’t! They don’t hate each other. We ate horrible fly-meatloaf together and they made fun of me.”

Shiro’s babble is harmless and sort of endearing, but he’s still touching Keith, which is the farthest thing from harmless. They’re in the last corridor. Shiro’s room is five doors down this hallway. Not that far. One hallway. Keith just has to survive one hallway.

Shiro is still stroking the tail of his braid. It’s intoxicating and infuriating, Shiro touching a part of him that has no nerve endings—the only part of him that feels nothing. Shiro’s hands are so close to his back, his shoulders, his neck, his scalp, so many places where Keith would be able to enjoy that touch. And Shiro would touch those places, would touch any part of him, no hesitation, if Keith asked.

Keith isn’t going to ask.

With an abrupt movement, Shiro drops Keith’s braid and backs Keith into the wall. He plants both hands on the wall, caging Keith with his arms, and looks directly into his eyes. Then his left hand drops to Keith’s shoulder, its heat burning through the layers of his uniform.

Keith would laugh, but it might come out like a whimper. _Be careful what you wish for_.

“They’re friends, Keith,” Shiro says, continuing his speech from earlier. His emphasis staggers from one syllable to the next. “They don’t hate each other! And if Ten Nuwee and Skama can be friends, when their species have been slaughtering each other for thousands of years, if they don’t hate each other, then _we_ don’t have to hate each other either.”

The words are so wrong they knock the breath from Keith’s lungs. His whole body feels pinched, his skin too tight, like his emotions are ballooning inside him and there’s no room for anything else. His eyes grow wet and he blinks furiously; he can’t hold himself together in the most literal, fundamental sense. Isn’t it obvious, everything that’s inside him? How can Shiro not know?

Shiro’s stare pins him in place. What gives him the right to look like that, his gaze swimming with concern, his lips and cheeks flushed from drinking? The sliver of shadow between his parted lips is a glimpse of the void, and Keith wants to fling himself into that darkness and never come back.

Keith’s throat works. He has to say something. Even the most cutting-edge translation tech would fail him here. He could scour all the languages of the galaxy and still find nothing that approaches the gravity of what he feels.

“I don’t hate you, Shiro.”

Releasing the words into the air provides him no relief. Keith feels just as squeezed and seasick as he did before. His insides slosh between wanting more of this, wanting things he’s afraid to name in the privacy of his own mind, let alone speak or do, and wanting to be cured of this fever, to be anywhere else.

Shiro breaks into a grin like Keith has just offered him the best surprise of his life. Then his expression falls and his eyes unfocus. “I don’t feel good.”

 _Yeah, join the club_ , Keith almost says, before remembering that Shiro drank way too much alien liquor and he’s communicating an immediate need, not describing the general state of his life. Shiro’s pupils bloom eerily large and his eyes roll back. He collapses. Keith catches him under one armpit and hauls him upright.

“Shiro?”

Shiro’s head lolls back. His eyes come open. “Keith?”

“I’m gonna pick you up,” Keith says. “Close your eyes and don’t think about it too hard, okay?”

Keith isn’t dizzy or on the verge of blacking out, but he follows his own instructions not to think about it too hard. He focuses on the mechanics of the act. The parts, not the sum. One arm under Shiro’s knees, the other supporting his back.

One step and then another. He walks as quickly and lightly as he can, trying not to jolt Shiro. Keith’s pulse is a driving force under his skin. Adrenaline, he tells himself. He’s in a stressful situation and he’s solving a problem. That’s all it is.

The automated door of Shiro’s guest room recognizes both of them and slides to let them in. Keith steps over the threshold, already searching for the bathroom. There’s an open door off to the right side of the room that has to be it. The spacious room has been reconfigured for human physiology, with a recognizable toilet, sink, and shower stall.

“I’m gonna put you down, okay?” Keith says.

“Mmph,” Shiro says against his chest, his eyes still closed.

Keith lets his legs down and keeps a hold of his upper body. Shiro slumps into him, heavy and ungainly.

“Shiro,” Keith says, projecting a steady authority he doesn’t feel. Shiro almost blacked out. It came on so fast. Does he need a doctor? A hospital? Is this a murder attempt already? What was in that drink? And if it _is_ an assassination attempt, why didn’t the murderer have the decency to make the kind that Keith could kick in the throat? Fucking coward.

Shiro groans.

“Shiro. Do you think you need to be sick?”

“Uh huh,” Shiro says. He lets go of Keith and drops to his knees so fast he’ll have bruises from the hard dark grey tile tomorrow. He crawls a foot to the toilet, manages to flip the lid, and vomits profusely.

Keith steps around him to get to the sink. There’s a glass resting on the counter next to it. Keith examines it carefully for tampering and finds nothing. Supposedly it’s fine for off-worlders to drink the water on Taranis, and if whatever comes out of the tap is poisoned, this place has even bigger problems than the attempted murder of a Voltron Coalition diplomat. Still, Keith drinks from the glass he pours for Shiro, just in case.

It tastes like water. The glass seems clean. A few minutes pass as Shiro finishes, and nothing happens to Keith except that his heart continues to thud in his chest, loud and off-kilter.

That’s not a consequence of drinking the water.

Shiro’s crumpled against the wall opposite the toilet, wiping some toilet paper across his mouth. His face has a greenish cast and there are beads of sweat caught in the hair at his temples, but he’s breathing. He regards the proffered water glasses through his lashes, unmoving, so Keith sighs, crouches down, and puts it to his lips until he drinks.

Shiro’s throat works as he swallows.

Keith can almost breathe again. “Better? Did that help?”

Shiro tips his head slightly to the side in a way that might be a nod or might be drunken exhaustion. He sets the drained glass on the floor, then looks away from Keith. His voice rasps as he says, “Better than what?”

Keith exhales shakily. Shiro’s okay. He’s alive. “Who else ate and drank what you had at dinner?”

“Everyone,” Shiro says. He slides the empty glass across the floor toward Keith. “Pitchers on table. Everyone had some. I watched.”

Keith gets up and fills the glass with water a second time, then brings it back.

“S’nice of you to assum—assass—murder,” Shiro says, after half the glass is gone.

“Just doing my job.”

Shiro makes a sound somewhere between a grunt and a laugh. He tries to ease himself off the floor, stumbles, and Keith intervenes, helping him stand.

Shiro’s got a firm grip on consciousness, but he’s still pretty fucking drunk.

“Gonna die if I don’t brush my teeth,” Shiro says mournfully, his gaze landing on the suitcase on the other side of the massive room.

“So it’s my job to fetch your toothbrush, is that it?” Keith rolls his eyes but does as he’s told. It’s curiously intimate, opening Shiro’s bag and sorting through the clothing and toiletries inside. His hand brushes a worn t-shirt and he wonders if Shiro sleeps in it. _Stop_.

After Shiro brushes his teeth, Keith helps him out of the bathroom and they cross the rest of the bedroom in fits and starts until Shiro is finally seated on the bed, looking far worse for wear but undeniably alive.

Keith shouldn’t be here anymore. Shiro doesn’t need him for anything. Keith can guard the room from outside the door.

Shiro stares down at his shoes, looking mystified by their presence, and mumbles, “That was really hard.”

“What was really hard? The dinner? Being sick?” Keith asks, distracted. It just occurred to him that there is no way Shiro, as drunk as he is, can get out of his clothes. Keith curls his hands at his sides, uncurls them, wishes he’d left already.

It’s fine. People sleep fully dressed all the time. Keith isn’t responsible for Shiro’s comfort or his happiness, just his life.

“You did a good job at dinner,” Keith says, at a loss for what else to tell Shiro. It’s the truth. “You were very charming and you held it together surprisingly well, considering how drunk you are. I watched the whole thing, remember?”

Shiro’s gaze flicks toward Keith. He makes a vaguely circular hand gesture in the air. “All of it. Everything.”

Oh. Keith had asked _what was really hard_ and Shiro’s answer had lagged.

“You think I did a good job,” Shiro says, picking up the thread again.

“You always do a good job.”

If they’re not going to discuss why Shiro’s so sure this wasn’t an assassination attempt, there is no reason for Keith to be here. Ruefully, Keith reflects that Shiro must be right. The other two victims were killed in an unusual way—at night, in their locked bedrooms, their bodies left desiccated by some unknown process. They weren’t poisoned at a state dinner where a dozen other people could have drunk from the same pitcher.

Shiro’s just smashed, then, and Keith was afraid for no reason.

Shiro has a full day of meetings tomorrow—he’d better hope Taranis can provide a good hangover cure—and Keith is supposed to be standing guard outside this room. But Shiro hasn’t even taken his jacket off. Keith can’t leave him like this.

“I don’t,” Shiro says. “Always do a good job.”

That line of conversation is heading nowhere good. Keith forcefully changes the subject. “If this is about that Lawafluye next to you at dinner, then you should know that sex is like a handshake or a hug for them. It’s rude not to offer, but you can turn it down with no hard feelings.”

Keith kneels and removes Shiro’s shoes.

“Is that so,” Shiro says, enunciating with great care.

Keith turned down Shiro’s hug earlier. It’s fair to say there were hard feelings involved in that. It was a mistake to bring this up. It was even more of a mistake to drop to his knees. Keith stands up so fast his vision goes black for an instant.

He shouldn’t touch Shiro anymore. He should just let Shiro fall asleep in his clothes. Yet he can’t seem to stop his hands from taking hold of Shiro’s lapels and coaxing the jacket off his shoulders. Keith folds it and hangs it over the back of a chair.

“You said I was charming.”

Shiro has a frustratingly good memory for being so drunk. Keith elects to ignore him and solve the problem in front of him instead. He won’t touch Shiro’s belt. That’s too much. The tie, though, that seems safe enough. It’s not like Shiro will be naked if Keith helps him out of that.

Keith doesn’t have much experience with Earth formalwear—every time he’d worn a tie, an adult in his life had knotted it for him—but it can’t be that hard. He grips the knot in one hand and studies it for a moment.

His braid has fallen over his shoulder, and Shiro picks up the end of it again. For a moment, they’re almost mirror images of each other.

Shiro moves first, stroking Keith’s braid through his fist in a way that Keith categorically refuses to think about it. It drives him to attack the knot of Shiro’s tie, which is too fucking complicated and _far_ too close to the warm skin of his throat. Keith yanks hard and looses nothing but a grunt from Shiro, who Keith almost strangled.

“Sorry.” Keith’s face is hot. Everything about this is a terrible idea.

“Why’d you leave,” Shiro says, soft and slurred, gazing up at Keith with those big dark eyes. “I didn’t want you to leave.”

Keith finally figures out which part of Shiro’s tie he has to pull, and he tugs it with more force than necessary. At last, the knot releases.

“Keith?” Shiro prompts.

Keith shakes his head, his throat too tight for words. He presses Shiro down toward the pillow and manages to say, “Go to sleep, Shiro.”

Miraculously, Shiro goes down and stays down, still fully clothed and on top of the made bed. Keith waits by his side until his breathing evens out, then pulls up the half of the comforter that Shiro’s not sleeping on and drapes it over his body.

Keith turns out the lights in the bedroom and bathroom, then comes to stand next to Shiro, drawn by some force beyond his control. One hand drifts down to caress the side of Shiro’s face, a ghost of a touch. His fingers brush Shiro’s jawline and Shiro stirs.

Keith withdraws his hand and walks away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from the San Fermin song "Astronaut." Space metaphors! Also here's a link to this chapter on [twitter](https://twitter.com/_cadignan/status/1094289771462082560).


	4. two self-fulfilling prophecies who don't even have each other

Shiro wakes up miserable, and that’s _before_ he remembers last night. Fuck. Did he vomit in front of Keith? The burn in his throat and the sick flutter in his stomach say yes.

He lurches out of bed and discards his wrinkled shirt and trousers. At least he went to bed in his clothes. Shiro can barely trust himself around Keith when he’s sober, so who knows what kind of damaging things he said or did while drunk.

There’s a black elastic band around his left wrist. How did that get there?

Shiro hadn’t meant to drink so much, but he’d needed the first two, and then after that his companions had grown… festive. Diplomacy’s required Shiro to eat, drink, and wear a lot of things he wouldn’t have chosen for himself. That’s not even getting into all the strange alien sports and dances he’s been invited to participate in. But Shiro’s a good diplomat partly because he’s adaptable, and what’s a little hangover or embarrassment, compared to the possibility of peace?

That logic goes down a lot easier when Keith’s not witnessing the embarrassment in question. Shiro sighs and gets into the shower.

He shaves and dresses—another suit, this one heather grey instead of black—and goes out the door.

Keith is leaning against the wall outside, the skin beneath his eyes smudged with fatigue. He’s wearing the same Blade uniform as yesterday. The glossy black braid over his shoulder is coming loose at the end.

Shiro tucks his wrist discreetly behind his back and slides the hair elastic off and into his pocket. “Good morning.”

“You look better than I thought you were going to.”

How familiar will they be with each other in the sober light of day? Keith wasn’t exactly polite, so Shiro decides to chance it. With a headache like this, he’ll dole out his etiquette to the people who require it. “You look worse. Did you sleep at all?”

“Here and there.” One shoulder slides up just a fraction, then down. “Kosmo was here for a while.”

Keith slept in the hallway? Standing up? Shiro glances around like the answer might be written on the wall, or Keith’s face, and when it isn’t, something pulls painfully tight in his chest. “You can’t stay up day and night, Keith, you’ll be no good to anyone like that.”

There’s no humor in Keith’s smile. “And if someone tries to kill you while I’m asleep?”

Shiro wants to retort that he can take care of himself—Keith hasn’t been around to watch his back for seven years, and Shiro survived all kinds of things by himself before that—and while it might be true right now, they both know it wasn’t true last night. Shiro’s head hurts too much for that conversation.

“You’re a light sleeper.” Shiro remembers a string of nights spent tiptoeing around the Black Lion with Krolia, trying not to wake Keith after they’d dragged him out of the cockpit at last.

“Mm,” Keith says, turning away. “You have a breakfast meeting. We should go.”

Shiro strides forward with confidence, but a minute later, it becomes clear how misplaced it is. He takes a guess and turns down one of the hallways. Keith taps him on the shoulder before he gets two steps into it.

“It’s this way,” Keith says, jerking his in the direction they had been going.

“Lead on,” Shiro says sourly.

Keith takes them a long way down the hallway in silence. Shiro hurries to walk beside him. Should he ask Keith questions? All the questions that bob to the surface of his poor, murky brain will only lead to more silence. _Why did you leave?_

Oh God. He’d asked last night and Keith hadn’t answered.

Keith whips around a corner into another imposing grey corridor; Shiro admits to himself that he knows the answer to his first question. But he wants Keith to say it, and that’s the whole problem.

They don’t talk anymore. It’s hard to say when exactly they stopped. Sure, they were on cordial enough terms right up until the wedding, but by then things had been stilted for a long time. At first, after their fight and his resurrection, Shiro had been giving Keith space, waiting for a sign that Keith was ready to address whatever lay between them. In retrospect, maybe it was Shiro who hadn’t been ready. Either way, he regrets it—his own choices, the violence that caused them. Silence, distance, those things had never troubled their relationship before the war.

Shiro’s second question is _do you think we’ll ever forgive each other?_ He’s afraid to ask.

So that’s some unknown quantity of time growing apart, plus seven years of silence, plus one night of literal gut-wrenching embarrassment. It doesn’t add up to easy conversation, but Shiro came here to solve millennia-old violent hostilities between two alien species. Surely he can get through a few minutes of conversation with Keith.

“What are you flying these days?”

“What?”

“You’re with the Blade, right? I’ve seen their relief shuttles, but I’m guessing you fly something… faster.”

Shiro almost said _sleeker_ and had to stop himself. This is enough of an asteroid field as it stands.

Keith is shaking his head. “Nothing.”

It’s Shiro’s job to know what to say. Instead his mouth drops open. He’s spent years wondering where Keith was, what he was doing, and in all his imaginings, it never once occurred to him that Keith wouldn’t be flying. It feels _wrong_ , like Keith cut out a fundamental part of himself.

“Nothing? Really? Not even a hoverbike parked outside your apartment?” It’s a criminal waste of talent, and worse, a loss of joy.

“No apartment,” Keith says. “In between missions, I stay at whichever Blade base is closest. There’s not a lot of time in between missions.”

Shiro’s dying to know about those missions, but he suspects Keith will shut right up if he asks. And _no apartment_ raises all kinds of other questions, in addition to stirring up a pity that Shiro absolutely cannot afford to let show. Even when Keith had been alone in the desert for a year, at least he’d had a permanent place to stay.

Shiro expects the conversation to end there, but Keith surprises him.

“I flew an Athahari XT 500 once.” There’s a hint of a smile, and Shiro’s glad to see it even if it’s not for him.

“An Athahari, huh? The XT 500’s the one with the flared wings and the engine that runs on kestunix, right? Gets, what, eighty millicees?”

“Try a hundred.”

Shiro knew that and purposefully lowballed his estimate to goad Keith into talking; he whistles anyway. Ten percent of the speed of light merits some appreciation. No need to ask if Keith gunned it. “How’d you get your hands on one of those?”

“Stole it.”

Shiro smiles back. He can’t help it. “Of course you did.”

“Well,” Keith says. “The owner was tied up in the back seat at the time, so maybe it only counts as borrowing.”

“Hardly criminal,” Shiro says, though he has yet more questions he can’t ask. “You were his driver.”

“I chauffeured him to his trial,” Keith agrees. A mute, breathy laugh slips out of him. He goes wide-eyed afterward, looking almost as surprised as Shiro feels. The moment shifts something between them, because Keith offers, unprompted, “That’s what I’ve been doing, Shiro.”

The past seven years have seen dozens upon dozens of galactic war crimes trials for the Empire’s warlords and bureaucrats. After the Galra stranglehold on the galaxy broke, some of them tried to set themselves up as dictators in their own right and had to be taken out with military action. Others fled. Shiro now knows who’s been tracking them down.

“You’ve been busy.”

Keith nods, slow and a little shaky, his eyes downcast, suddenly adrift.

Has Keith had help? Or has he been relentlessly hounding fugitive criminals all by himself for years? No apartment. No hoverbike. No laughter. Shiro can guess the rest of the list: no lover, no friends. Krolia’s been traveling the galaxy, so she can’t have spent much time with Keith. The thought stabs right through him, and Shiro fights off his urge to draw Keith into a hug.

Instead he says, “It’s important work.”

For an instant, time bends. Keith lifts his chin, just like he did when Shiro picked him up from juvie all those years ago, fierce and proud. Keith still wants Shiro’s approval. Shiro still wants to give it to him.

Then Keith turns away, leading them down another hallway and at last reaching a door that Shiro recognizes as the entrance to the dining room.

“Who’s at this meeting? Joint Parliament members? Any potential suspects?” Keith asks, pausing just outside the range of the automated door. “Krolia sent me the schedule but it was… missing a few details.”

Shiro’s name, for one.

“No,” Shiro says. “They’re not suspects.”

 

* * *

 

 _They’re not suspects_. Keith puts it together half a second too late. No sooner is the door open than Allura is sweeping across the dining room in her blue-and-white Altean gown, barreling toward Keith.

He squares his shoulders, unsure if she’s going to hit him.

She hugs him instead.

“Thank the Ancients you’re not dead!”

Allura smells sweet and oddly familiar, her perfume made of Earth fruits and flowers, scents he hasn’t inhaled since he left. The cloudy mass of her hair swings behind her as she engulfs him, squeezing punishingly hard and rocking from side to side. She does punch his shoulder with one hand, but it’s not a serious attack.

“I could _kill_ you,” she whispers into his ear. “I’m going to. I am absolutely going to murder you. I’m going to kill you and bring you back to life just to yell at you again, you _churl_. I never spank Melenor but I have a mind to spank you.”

“Uh,” Keith says, the first word he’s spoken to her in seven years. He has a guess at who Melenor is, but it’s the wrong time to congratulate Allura on motherhood. “Please don’t.”

“Lance _cried_ ,” Allura continues, low enough that no one but him can hear. “Are you listening? Sweet, happy, beautiful Lance! You made him _cry_ , Keith. Do you go about kicking puppies, too? It was six years ago on the anniversary of the night you left. He’s probably forgiven you, but I haven’t.”

“Um.” Keith doesn’t recall Lance being all that much like a puppy. That’s just one of many unexpected things about this encounter. He always thought of Allura as being… decorous. Proper. Aloof.

Keith never would have guessed that she’d miss him enough to be angry.

Also, is he in trouble because Lance cried one time six years ago when Keith wasn’t even in the same system? Why is that his problem? And if Allura’s so angry, why is she _still_ hugging him?

“Hunk cried, too, of course, and I imagine Pidge was deeply hurt. Oh, Ancients, I don’t know what to do with you. We genuinely wondered if you were dead, you know. Your mother never said a word.”

Yeah, Krolia was loyal—right up until she wasn’t. She dumped him in this mess without a word of warning. Shiro distracted Keith so much that it didn’t even occur to him how complicated seeing the others might be.

Just as he’s beginning to wonder if Allura is going to make good on her threats of murder and actually squeeze him to death, Hunk saves his life.

“Hey, don’t hog all the Keith hugs. He owes the rest of us seven years’ worth, too.”

Allura releases him, Keith takes in a lungful of air, and then it’s Hunk crushing him. Hugging Hunk feels the same as it did seven years ago, almost eerily so, because Keith is guessing Hunk only owns one suit and this is probably the same one he wore to the wedding.

“I’m glad to see you,” Hunk says, which is a welcome relief after what Allura had to say, but then he adds, “That was really not cool, leaving like you did. I get why you left, but I missed you, dude. You’re back for good, right?”

“I—” _No_. Of course not. The galaxy is still infested with monsters fleeing justice, and Keith can’t hang around here to get the shards of his heart ground into dust every time Shiro smiles.

In a desperate bid for distraction, he glances over Hunk’s shoulder and sees Lance in blue-and-white Altean formal wear holding a white-haired toddler who must be Melenor, next to Coran, dressed similarly, with grey streaks in his hair, and Pidge, looking grown up in a striped suit.

Lance, Coran, and Hunk are smiling. Pidge isn’t.

After Hunk lets him go, thankfully without requiring an answer, Coran hugs him and Lance comes over to introduce Melenor, who cheerfully grabs his hand and repeats, “Keef!”

Her chubby little hands are sticky with some unknown substance. Keith tries to keep the dismay off his face, but Lance catches it and laughs at him.

“It’s like that all the time,” Lance explains. “I don’t know how it’s possible—it’s not like I don’t wash her hands!—but she’s amazingly consistent. It kinda makes me proud.”

Keith manages to smile at that. At least Lance joking around feels normal—except for the part where _Lance_ is someone’s _father_ , holy shit. Keith wipes his hand discreetly on his pants and turns to the only person he hasn’t greeted.

Pidge says, “Hi.”

Then she picks something out of her fingernails with the same kind of concentration she’d use to hack into a particle barrier.

Allura’s outpouring of relief and anger made him squirm with discomfort, but _that_? Keith fucked up.

He doesn’t know how to fix it.

He could say a lot of things. _Shiro didn’t want me_. _The Lions were gone_. _I didn’t think you all needed me_.

A hand lands on his shoulder. He knows whose without looking, and it shouldn’t be welcome, but it is.

“Well, I know this is a special moment, but we should catch each other up on what we’re doing here,” Shiro says. “Let’s sit down and hope breakfast tastes better than dinner.”

Breakfast is fruit, mostly, and while Keith doesn’t recognize any of them, they’re unobjectionable. He’s happy to have something else to focus on for a moment.

“I’m mediating the negotiations,” Shiro says, cutting into something purple on his plate. “Last night I met the outgoing Galra governor, Zendig, and his lieutenant governor Hurog, as well as the members of the Joint Parliament. I think it’s going to be tricky, arriving at a solution that satisfies everyone, but I’m excited to get to work.”

“I’m just here to look pretty,” Lance says. “And hang with Melenor. It’s Allura they wanted.”

“The Joint Parliament did request my help restoring their environment,” Allura says. “They may have been under the mistaken impression that your presence—all five of you, that is—renders me capable of more alchemy, which isn’t true. I was honest with them, but it’s not clear to me that they listened.”

“Yeah, my impression was that the Joint Parliament only said they wanted all the Paladins here because they were trying to embarrass Krolia,” Pidge says. “For _some_ reason, they thought one of us wouldn’t show.”

“I just came along because I love Taranis,” Coran says. Either he’s oblivious to Pidge’s needling or he’s trying to save Keith, and whichever it is, Keith is grateful. “A shame what’s happened to it in the final decaphoebs of the Empire.”

“Yeah, this is basically diplomatic tourism for me,” Hunk says. “But I asked if they’d let me work in the kitchen, and they said yes, so hopefully I can at least make sure dinner tonight is better!”

A silence.

“I’m here because of the murders,” Keith says.

“The _what_ ,” Lance says. He turns to face Allura, and under his breath, he says, “Did you know about this? Did you have me bring our _three-year-old daughter_ across the galaxy to a creepy vine-covered fogged-up _murder_ den?”

Allura pats him on the shoulder. “You’ll be fine, dear. The one thing the Tyen and the Lawafluye agree on is that their planet requires my help. No one’s going to touch us. And if they do, Melenor has two Paladins of Voltron as parents. Surely we can defend ourselves.”

Lance scrunches up his face. At his side and totally undisturbed by her parents’ argument, Melenor continues shoving fruit in her mouth.

“Maybe you could, uh, tell us a little about the murders, Keith?” Hunk asks.

This, Keith can do. He takes a deep breath, and then the dining room doors slide open and his mother walks in.

“Good morning,” she says. “I wanted to give you all some time together before I interrupted.”

Keith mentally translates that as _I wanted to throw my son to the wolves one last time_ , but honestly, who knows what Krolia’s thoughts are.

She sits down at the long and table and says, “Please, continue.”

Keith says, “The first victim was Yuma, a Lawafluye member of the Joint Parliament. He was very vocal about peace between the two species. He was found dead in his locked bedroom, alone, which is very unusual for the Lawafluye—they’re, ah, social.”

“Keith means they have a lot of sexual partners,” Coran says.

“His body was desiccated. We’re still not sure how he died. No one in his neighborhood saw anything unusual,” Keith says. “As I said, he was very outspoken. His replacement in the Joint Parliament is Zol. She’s one of the members who argued that if the Galra Empire wanted to demonstrate seriousness, they’d get all the Paladins of Voltron here.”

“So she’s maybe not so into peace,” Hunk says. “Suspicious.”

“Yes,” Krolia says dryly.

“It’s the same story with the other victim—Ah Sho Dwa Fe Le, who was in the running for prime minister, or whatever leadership title they settle on, once the Galra Governor’s term ends and Taranis holds its first elections.”

“It’s notable that Ah Sho Dwa Fe Le was male,” Shiro says. “Generally speaking, the Tyen don’t believe males are suited to any kind of politics, so it’s a sign of how popular he was that he made it as far as he did.”

“Tyen Sho was _also_ replaced by someone who argued that we should all be here,” Keith says. “His name is Tyen Gren.”

“These certainly do seem like assassinations,” Allura says. “Who stands to gain if the Summit fails?”

Keith frowns. “All kinds of people. There’s a Lawafluyed separatist group that hates the idea of the Joint Parliament because they maintain that the Tyen have always mistreated them. They’re called Skarp.”

“It’s rude in Lawafluyed,” Shiro offers, which Keith didn’t know. “It means ‘leave,’ but more like ‘fuck off.’ I’m… not sure how I’m going to bring it up in the talks.”

“The separatists have a point—the Tyen have a lot more wealth and power. You’ll notice the capital we’re in is called Vi Tyenaver,” Keith says. “But that also means the murderer might be one of them. Lots of Tyen have profited from collaborating with the Galra.”

“And there’s the Galra,” Allura says. “Presumably if the Summit fails, Governor Zendig will argue that he simply _has_ to maintain control of this planet.”

“Yes,” Keith says tightly. He did his research on Zendig, too. Not enough of a shitstain to merit being hauled off to a war crimes trial, but not likely to lead this planet to peace and prosperity, either. The Lieutenant Governor, Hurog, hadn’t said anything objectionable on the record, but Keith knows better than to trust that. Hurog might have succeeded Zendig if only the Empire hadn’t been defeated.

“The method matters,” Pidge says, her first interjection into the conversation. At least they can still solve problems together, even if she won’t speak to Keith otherwise. “If we find out how it was done the first two times, we can stop it from happening again.”

“And we might figure out who had access to whatever tech made the murder possible,” Hunk agrees.

“Would you two look into that for me?” Krolia says. “I thought you might be able to make more progress than I could. Tyen Gren and Zol thought they’d embarrass me by asking for something I couldn’t possibly provide, but I saw it as an opportunity to consult with some of the most brilliant people I know.”

Pidge and Hunk smile at his mother, because sure, they’re not mad at _her_. Under the table, Keith twists the edge of the tablecloth in one hand. Krolia conveniently didn’t mention that she also saw this an opportunity to force him into the most uncomfortable situation of his life, but he’s going to bring it up later.

“This is all very interesting,” Allura says, and beside her, Lance’s mouth pulls to one side. “I believe I’m supposed to go ‘work my stuff,’ as Lance calls it.”

“Yes,” Krolia says. “I hope you don’t mind an audience. I thought a display of your power might put the Joint Parliament members in a better mood before we sit down to negotiate.”

Well, at least somebody will be in a good mood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic used to say it was 13 chapters and now it says 14, but it didn't get any longer. I split this chapter in two so I could use that Neko Case lyric in the title of this chapter, which comes from her song "Curse of the I-5 Corridor." (Yes, this is the second Neko lyric used as chapter title in this fic, or the third if you could The New Pornographers. I like what I like!)
> 
> Thank you for all your lovely comments <3


	5. live again

“Hey,” Hunk says, sidling up to Keith as they exit the Governor’s Mansion. “Try this.”

Hunk presses something into his hand that looks like a marbled pink-and-green cookie. Keith frowns. “Where did you get this?”

“A bakery a couple streets over. I’m investigating local ingredients. Pretty slim pickings, though, the Empire really wrecked this place. But there’s a little greenhouse in town working really hard to cultivate traditional plants, and I found a bakery that works with them. This is a Tyenaver dessert, but the bakery does both. Not many places do.”

None of that entices Keith to put the cookie in his mouth. He glances up, expecting to see Shiro beside him, but Shiro has drifted a few paces to the side as they descend the long staircase. Probably trying to give Keith and Hunk some space. Shiro could stand to be less considerate.

“It’s really good,” Hunk says. “And not poison. I ate one myself. Swear.”

Keith stares down at the cookie in his hand, then over to Shiro, who is ten feet away and still perfectly fine, not getting even a little bit murdered. No way out of this conversation, then. “Hunk, what… is this?”

“Are you feeling okay? I literally just told you all about it.” Hunk puts a hand on his forehead, testing for fever. The touch makes Keith jump back. Hunk holds his hand up, palm facing Keith. “Unarmed, I swear.”

“Yeah, I know, I’m just—” Keith sighs. “I’m not good at this.”

“Eating a cookie requires zero skill, I promise. Just put it in your mouth and chew.”

“I meant I’m not good at… people. Friendship.”

Hunk slings a strong arm around his shoulders and squeezes before Keith can flinch away. “And _I_ was willfully misunderstanding you because that’s sad as hell, dude. Stop acting like we’ve never met before. Eat the cookie. We’re friends. It’s okay.”

Keith takes a bite. The cookie, light in his hand, has a satisfying crunch for something so airy. Considering its bright colors, it’s not as much of a blast of sugar as he expects. “It tastes kind of… grassy. Or like flowers.”

“Yeah!” Hunk gives his shoulders an excited squeeze because they are—somehow—still touching. “You have a pretty sophisticated palate for someone who I assume survives on instant rations most of the time.”

“Thanks?”

“A couple years ago, Pidge and I spent a few weekends fucking around in our kitchen—”

“Wait, you and Pidge?” Keith’s been gone for a long time, but there’s no amount of time that would make _that_ less surprising.

“Nah, it’s not like that with us. She’s my best bro. She gets along really well with Romelle and Shay and was over at our house all the time anyway, and Alteans and Balmerans are used to living collectively, so we just went for it. I’m actually in the middle of building another house on the lot for Shay’s family. They wanted it to be totally underground—my folks laughed when they heard that. We all live on Oahu, so… not a lot of basements. I did what I could, design-wise, to make it feel like home for them. Getting the building inspector’s approval on the plans was a _process_. Anyway, Shay and Romelle stayed back on Earth—supposedly for the dogs, but you know Romelle, she’s done with adventures. And even though it’s early, Shay wasn’t feeling the whole space travel thing. Balmeran gestation lasts like fifteen months, it’s rough.”

Keith blinks. That is a lot of information all at once. He tries to pick out the most important part. “Congratulations?”

Hunk slaps his shoulder. “Thanks, man, I’m excited! Romelle wants to have one too, but I was like, whoa, slow down, one baby at a time. But anyway, like I was saying, Pidge and I rebuilt all the kitchen equipment from the Castle of Lions, or at least we recreated what we could remember. If you ever get nostalgic for food goo, you should come by.”

“I… don’t.”

“Yeah, not gonna lie, after tasting it again, I wasn’t either. The Alteans were excited, though. Pidge and I mostly threw it at each other—and Melenor, which Lance and Allura were pretty mad about, but hey, she started it.”

It feels like a story from another lifetime, except all those people are right here. They’ve been living their lives without him all these years. He’s missed so much and Hunk is acting like he could walk right back in. Keith’s chest aches. Hunk really believes that. He’s the same person he’s always been.

“Well, food goo nostalgia or no, the offer stands. Come by some time,” Hunk says. “Time it right and you can meet our first kid. Hey, you want another cookie? I have a ton.”

“Yeah,” Keith says, even though he doesn’t really. Hunk pulls out the bakery bag and offers him a cookie with a flourish. It’s sweet.

 

* * *

 

Krolia’s been stuck in a lot of nasty, creepy places in her life and Vi Tyenaver still makes her skin crawl. Every building is the skeleton of something that used to be alive, a massive spiny creature that might uproot itself at any moment and shamble off—or reach out with one of its vines and strangle you. The fog clings to the ground, thick and wet, like all the moisture that was once in the city’s organic structures has been sucked out and poured into the air.

The murder victims had been shriveled and dry, too.

Krolia walks at the back of the delegation as they make their way from the Governor’s Mansion to Vi Tyenaver’s central square. There’s a cathedral-like building towering over the city where Allura will make her first grand gesture.

Krolia studies the six members of the Joint Parliament. It’s hard to find a Lawafluye without an alibi, as much time as they spend fucking, and the three Tyen members all have friends or partners who vouch for them, too. No, it wasn’t any of these six. They’re all afraid they’ll be next.

Her gaze wanders to the Galra. The Governor’s probably killed his fair share of people, but he’s old now. Besides which, if he wanted to kill someone, he’d just shoot them. Whatever police force Taranis has, they’d be unlikely to cross him, and Zendig’s a simple, belligerent creature. Hurog actually has enough brains to show some promise as a leader, but he’ll have to exercise that skill elsewhere. It’s time for this planet to govern itself.

Keith drops back from trailing Shiro and the others to walk at her side. “You had to make some hard choices, huh?”

He’s angry. Of course he’s angry. She betrayed his trust. “I am sorry for hiding things from you, Keith. I needed you here and you wouldn’t have come if you’d known.”

He huffs and stares down at the wet cobblestones. He can’t argue the point. All the same, Krolia doesn’t expect to hear “apology accepted” any time soon. At least they’re still on speaking terms.

“Is it so terrible? Seeing them again?”

“Yes,” he hisses.

“More terrible than what you’ve been doing to yourself for the past seven years?” Krolia asks.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

If only Keith had developed a self-destructive habit for something else—drinking, perhaps, or gambling—Krolia could have staged an intervention long before this. Being her child, he’d taken up a solitary, righteous cause instead. “I think you do. And if you don’t, you will soon.” Before he can say anything else, she adds, “What happened to your braid? It’s coming loose at the end.”

“Nothing,” he mutters. “Lost the hair elastic somewhere.”

Krolia has another one in her pocket, but she merely hums in response. They’ve arrived at the central square, the gnarled facade of the cathedral staring them down. Allura walks forward and the others array themselves in an arc around her.

“I’m still mad at you,” Keith says, and peels off to go stand with behind his charge.

Allura kneels on the wet, dirty stone without a care for her white dress and wraps her hands around the base of one of the vines that composes the portico, her figure a tiny white splotch overshadowed by the dark structure above. Her eyes close, her head drops forward, and the silence surrounding them resonates with power.

Krolia can’t say how much time passes before she senses a change. It feels both instant and infinite, the fog clearing and the building growing lighter, its dead wood warming from black to brown, life rushing from Allura’s hands. The cathedral rustles and groans, its architecture softening from chain link to trellis.

The astringent smell of the rainy city deepens into something earthy and sweet. All over the facade, twigs sprout, leaves unfurl, and flowers bud.

Krolia isn’t given to crying, but the gasps and sobs of the Joint Parliament members make her swallow around a lump in her throat. They didn’t dare hope for this much. Krolia hardly believed it herself. So many things in life feel impossible until they are done. Allura has gifted them a glimpse of the future: the starved cadaver of Vi Tyenaver revivified. This place is still a crumbling mess of suffering and backstabbing, but nothing is beyond repair.

Allura falls forward. Lance passes his daughter to Hunk and runs to help his wife off the ground. Krolia smiles, dabs at her eyes, and sees her second miracle of the day: Shiro and Keith, standing shoulder to shoulder, touching.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Live Again" is an Irma Thomas song. It's an early 60s soul song, not that sheith-y unless you're me on the morning of December 15, 2018, ready to cry about anything, in which case it's extremely sheith-y. I listened to a lot of Irma Thomas while writing this fic.


	6. anyone who knows what love is will understand

The face Pidge makes when Krolia says “there’s a chance it’s magic” would be comical in any other circumstances.

Krolia invited Pidge and Hunk to her apartment in the scant free time she has before this afternoon’s negotiations begin. It’s the only place she knows for sure is free of bugs.

Hunk is sitting on the floor giving Kosmo a belly rub. Pidge is on the couch, one elbow propped on the back and her head resting in that hand. Her hair is as wild as it’s ever been, or maybe wilder since Krolia suggested the possibility of magic and Pidge started giving herself a scalp massage.

“I’m sorry,” Krolia says. “I can’t rule out the possibility.”

“Ugh,” Pidge says.

Krolia’s not suffering under any illusions. Pidge is angry with her for keeping Keith’s secrets. But she’s brilliant and restless and Krolia can offer her a puzzle to solve, so she’s here.

“What makes you think it’s magic?” Hunk says.

“I’ve checked all the door logs myself,” Krolia says. “No one entered those rooms except the victims. I checked the ventilation, too, but it’s too small for any of the sentient species on this planet. We’re dealing with a murderer who seems to be able to pass through walls.”

“Kosmo could do it,” Hunk says, giving the wolf an even more vigorous rub. Addressing Kosmo directly, he adds, “But you wouldn’t, would you?”

“That’s the problem of getting into the room,” Pidge says. “What about the murder itself?”

“You’ve seen the files on both victims,” Krolia says. “What did it look like to you?”

“Like Honerva sucked out their quintessence,” Hunk volunteers. “But she’s dead. We saw it happen.”

“So it’s tech,” Pidge says, brightening. “The Empire had tech that could drain whole planets.”

“You think somebody around here has a portable piece of technology that allows them to drain a living being of quintessence?” Hunk whistles. “There’s a theory.”

“Why choose that method?” Krolia asks. There are all kinds of ways to kill. Sucking out someone’s quintessence and leaving their dried-up corpse on display is a statement.

Pidge shrugs. “That’s your department. Or Shiro or… Keith or somebody. I’m not here to talk motives and psychology and all that squishy stuff.”

“Speaking of squishy stuff,” Krolia says. “The other possibility, which falls somewhere in between tech and magic, is that entry into the room—and possibly the murder itself—was accomplished through some biological capability of one of the species on this planet. Like Hunk said, Kosmo could do it.”

“A biological capability we don’t know about?” Pidge asks. “Aren’t there like… medical textbooks on both these species? What kind of backwater _is_ this place?”

“The Alteans kept their alchemy a secret,” Hunk says. “Could be that other species have things they don’t want to share with the class. But if it’s some biological thing either the Tyen or the Lawafluye can do, then it’s very weird that _no one_ mentioned it for the sake of, you know, solving the murders.”

“Also, biology is totally tech,” Pidge says. “Bodies are just machines made of meat.”

“Ew,” Hunk says. He tilts his head in thought and frowns. “But… kind of true. I can’t believe you made me think about this right before lunch. There’s a place not far from here that has local specialties, and we should go before they run out.”

“Am I gonna regret agreeing to go out to lunch with you?” Pidge asks.

“It has great reviews! It’s kind of a hole-in-the-wall place. Or actually more of a hole in the ground. But have I ever led you wrong?” Hunk says, touching his heart. Then he shoots an uncertain glance toward Krolia. “Do you… wanna join us?”

She shakes her head. “I’ve already eaten, and I have to get back to the talks. But thank you both for meeting me. Let me know if you come up with anything.”

 

* * *

 

Keith takes up his station—back to the wall, a clear view of both doors—for an interminable afternoon of peace talks. It’s amazing that Shiro hasn’t snapped at Zendig or Hurog or the Joint Parliament’s more irritating members yet. He’s wanted to a few times, that little telltale twitch at the downturned corner of his mouth signaling impatience, but he hasn’t given in yet. It’s a small pleasure that Keith can still decipher the code of Shiro’s body, uncovering something that is only available to him.

Everyone seated at the table probably thinks Shiro’s effortlessly calm and patient and generous. He _is_ all those things, but anyone who thinks it’s effortless is missing Shiro’s real gift. In the angle of his brows, in the quiet press of his lips, Keith sees the work.

What good is anything effortless, anyway?

Keith is so occupied in his observation of Shiro that he misses Lance peeking in through the door to his left for a solid minute. When he catches sight at last, he crosses the room discreetly and exits into the hallway.

“What is it?” Keith asks. After this morning, he’s not thrilled to see any of his former teammates. The likelihood of a lecture is too high. “Is something wrong? I’m supposed to be in there.”

“Yeah, you’re alternately dozing off and gazing at Shiro, I know, it’s crucial,” Lance says. “No, nothing’s wrong. I just finally put Melenor down for a nap and am desperate for adult conversation. Allura’s conked out and Pidge and Hunk are off eating something weird in town, so you’re the closest I can get.”

“Oh,” Keith says. The teasing barely registers. Lance… wants to talk to him?

“I wish we could go get a drink and catch up, but I figured the best I could hope for was to steal you away from work for a few minutes. I’m sorry about this morning,” Lance says. “I know that was kinda rough.”

“Yeah.”

“Allura’s pissed at you, man.”

Keith frowns. He doesn’t need a reminder. He really ought to go back inside and do his job.

“I mean, I know how _I’d_ make it up to her—”

“Don’t be gross, Lance.”

“—I’d start by saying sorry,” Lance finishes, smirking.

Keith rolls his eyes.

“Seriously, though, I get it. Not saying it was a picnic, you cutting us off like that, but when I think about if Allura married someone else… shit, man, I’d be fucked up forever.”

“Is this supposed to be helping?” Keith demands. He crossed the galaxy so he wouldn’t have to hear Lance or anybody else pity him like this. “Are you helping right now?”

“I dunno, am I?” Lance shrugs. “Just saying, the only reason they never called you ‘loverboy Keith’ was that Allura played your role on the show.”

“You’re _not_ helping,” Keith says decisively. He turns to re-enter the conference room.

“Hey, c’mon,” Lance says, putting a hand on Keith’s arm. Just like in all those dozens of battles, Lance is at his right side. “I thought you might appreciate somebody being real with you. We both know why you left, and I’m telling you I understand. I forgive you, and so will the others, if you let them.”

Keith hadn’t been aware there was a need for forgiveness until this morning. He almost retorts with something unfriendly. Then he remembers Pidge’s face.

After a moment, he ventures, “You think so?”

“Yeah, man. I do. If you come over and coo at Melenor for a while—bring Shiro, he’s her favorite person—maybe slip in an apology somewhere, promise you’ll stay in touch even if you leave again, Allura’ll let you back in.” Lance pauses and gives Keith a significant look. “You know people are like that, right? Things can go wrong between you and another person and then together you can both fix it. It’s not like, one mistake and it’s all over forever. You can say sorry. Other people can say sorry.”

“Lance,” Keith warns.

“Just checking,” Lance says. “We had just barely civilized you by the end of the war and now you’re feral again. Let me worry a little, okay?”

This miserable and absurd conversation is, supposedly, an expression of Lance’s friendship, so Keith endures it. “You don’t have to worry about me. I’ve been fine.”

“Uh huh,” Lance says. “Anyway, like I said, come over. We would love to share some domesticity with you, since you’ve obviously been bedding down in the wilderness and speaking to no one for weeks at a time.”

That’s not true. Keith always informs the assholes he drags to their war crimes trials exactly where they’re going and why. That counts as conversation.

“Allura will chill out, I promise,” Lance says. “You just have to make a little effort.”

Keith will believe that when he sees it. Still, he can’t stop himself from asking, “And Pidge?”

“Eventually, yeah,” Lance says. “I don’t know what you need to do or say to make it up to her, but she wouldn’t be mad if you meant nothing to her, you know? Somewhere deep in the maze of her genius brain, she wants to be friends again. You just gotta figure out how.”

As if Keith doesn’t have enough mysteries to solve. He sighs. “I’m gonna go do my actual job now.”

 

* * *

 

Shiro had spent so long staring at two different configurations of proposed borders that tonight’s artfully plated dinner and its assorted unidentifiable garnishes could only remind him of the Tyenaver river winding its way to the sea. To Hunk’s credit, the food had been far more palatable than last night’s, and to his own, he’d managed to stay reasonably sober. Dinner had concluded with a recitation of local poetry. Now all Shiro wants to do is fall into bed so he can get up and do this again tomorrow.

Keith follows him out of the grand ballroom and into the corridor, quiet. If Shiro’s worn out, Keith has to be ruined, given that he hardly slept last night. He hasn’t complained.

The lights in the corridors operate by motion sensors. It’s nothing unusual, technologically, but it does mean that sometimes Shiro and Keith enter a darkened corridor and have to wait a moment before the lights come on.

They’re about to turn into the hallway where Shiro’s room is. The lights flicker on.

Keith slams into him, shoving them both into a hall closet Shiro hadn’t even known was there. It’s lightless and stifling inside, and Shiro’s knee throbs where he knocked it against a broom handle or something. Keith flattens him against the wall and then… flattens himself to Shiro.

“Uh,” Shiro says, and Keith firmly applies his hand to Shiro’s mouth.

Okay.

It would be a bad idea to think about any of this. The warm skin of Keith’s palm against his lips, for example. The throb of Keith’s pulse in time with his own. The lean, hard hip digging into his body. The way they could grind on each other if only Keith would push him up against a wall for the right reasons instead of the wrong ones.

The six years, eight months, and two weeks that have gone by since Shiro last had sex.

He takes a silent, shuddering breath. _Pull it together_.

Why are they even in here? What did Keith perceive? The hallway light could be nothing. The Governor’s Mansion is a huge building with numerous staff members. It could have been anyone.

He can’t say anything of that, or ask any questions, not with Keith’s hand over his mouth. Keith’s whole body is drawn taut. What’s he listening for? Shiro can’t hear anything. No one’s out there. There’s no tapping of shoes or clicking of Lawafluye claws against the hard floor. No conversation.

Whoever moved enough to make the light turn on, they’re not coming back this way.

Keith makes him wait so long—in the dark, pressed flush against each other—that the stillness becomes a kind of torment. Shiro survives by breathing shallowly, trying not inhale Keith’s scent. He occupies his body as little as possible, imagining instead the relentlessly grey decor of the conference room, its stale air, the one stuck wheel of his rolling chair, this afternoon’s hours-long debate about proposed methods for amending the new constitution.

It’s futile. Nothing can stop him from memorizing every sensory detail of this moment. Shiro will propose his own amendments to these events later, in private. A more perfect union.

Keith twists toward the crack in the door. He must have heard something Shiro missed—and there’s a cheerless thought, Shiro being distracted and Keith remaining unfazed by any of this.

Keith bends over, trying to catch a glimpse of something. Wildly unfair. No amount of imagining the conference room can dull the sensation of Keith’s ass rubbing against his cock. Fuck.

Then Shiro hears it.

He can’t place the sound at first. It corresponds to nothing in his experience. Like soup being slurped, but the volume suggests a quantity of liquid that makes Shiro a little ill. The sound ends with a squelch and a slap.

For the first time since they entered this closet, Shiro’s pulse picks up in a way that has nothing to do with Keith. There was something out there. None of the five species currently present in the Governor’s Mansion move in a way that makes that sound, at least as far as Shiro knows. So what was it?

And what was it doing in the hallway outside his bedroom?

Seconds of silence tick by, and then at last Keith cracks open the door and peeks into the hall. Given what they heard, Shiro expects to see… a spill, or a residue, or some trace of what passed by. The grey tiles are unmarked.

“Keith, what was that? How did you know it was there?” Shiro doesn’t remember how to be scared. The threat of death is nothing new, and with Keith by his side, it feels familiar.

“No one else is staying in the same hallway as you,” Keith says. Right. He memorized the floor plan, from the sound of it, the rooming arrangements, too. Keith’s always been damn good at all his jobs. “There’s no reason for that light to be on. Unless you have a guest I don’t know about?”

“No,” Shiro says, grateful that Keith is scanning their surroundings instead of making eye contact. “No… guests.”

A moment of silence later, and Shiro gets stupid and brave enough to add, “No guests in years, actually. None since the divorce.”

Keith says nothing.

Proposed amendment no. 1: strike that silence and replace it with _there hasn’t been anybody for me either_ , followed by a moment of rueful, sweet, fragile, we-both-fucked-up acknowledgement. No. Too real. Proposed amendment no. 2: strike that silence and replace it with a crooked smile and _fucking invite me in already_ , followed by kissing.

That passes Shiro’s imagination with unanimous approval, but the other party’ll never ratify it.

They reach Shiro’s bedroom at last. Even if Keith stays inside the room to protect him from threats, Shiro will still be spending the night alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title is another Irma Thomas song. I had a real thing for her music while writing this :)


	7. nothing fuels a good flirtation like need and anger and desperation

Keith stops outside the door to Shiro’s room, which is untouched and still locked. It recognizes Keith and Shiro and slides open, but Keith doesn’t enter. He puts a hand out, signaling that Shiro should wait, and after a long moment of scrutiny, Keith goes in. He checks the corners, the bathroom, and all around the bed. He opens the dresser drawers. Then he stands in place and studies the room.

“Come in,” he says at last, something like defeat or irritation in his tone.

Shiro gives Keith a quizzical look.

“I _feel_ like someone was here,” Keith says. “But that’s all it is. A feeling. Nothing’s been moved.”

“Your gut was right when we were in the hallway,” Shiro says. Time to put aside his desires and focus on serious things—must be a day that ends in _-y_. Or whatever they call a single rotation of Taranis. “Maybe you’re right about this. Want to talk through it?”

Keith drags the chair away from the desk and sits down in it. “The door’s only programmed for us. Normally the janitorial staff can get in, but given the circumstances, Krolia requested that access be restricted.”

“And it doesn’t look like anyone forced it open,” Shiro says. “There’s a log of everyone who’s used it.”

“I know. Krolia showed me the ones she’d checked. But I don’t know how to get access to more recent info.”

“I bet Pidge could figure it out.”

Shiro smiles apologetically. Things hadn’t gone well with Pidge this morning. She’d lost her father and her brother to long involuntary absences. It made sense that a long _voluntary_ absence wouldn’t sit well with her. Shiro sympathized.

But Keith had gone so still in that moment, lost and painfully alone. Shiro had never seen such a clear example of someone else experiencing a realization—except instead of a cartoon lightbulb, it was the headlights of an oncoming train.

 _You tied yourself to those tracks_ , Shiro thinks, still stubborn and hurt in some private part of himself. But he’d rescued Keith anyway, and he’d do it again. He always will.

But that’s about the two of them, and this is about Pidge. “I’ll protect you,” Shiro says, a joke in tone but not in content.

Keith ignores it and sets his jaw. “Let’s ask her.”

Shiro exchanges a flurry of messages with Pidge. She’s in some other wing of the Governor’s Mansion, checking the logs from her personal device, and confirms beyond a doubt that the only people in the log for Shiro’s room are Shiro and Keith. There’s no need for her to come all the way over here.

Shiro invites her anyway. He doesn’t mention that Keith is in the room—she just looked at the log, so she can put that together herself.

Shiro opens the door for her when she arrives. She’s wearing an old t-shirt and sweatpants under an unbelted plaid bathrobe. Her arms are crossed over her chest. She looks him in the eye and says, “Do _not_ try any conflict mediation bullshit.”

“What if it’s not bullshit?” he asks, smiling. “Can I try it then?”

“Fuck off,” Pidge says, but she’s smiling, too. She walks past him. “I came here because I want a look around.”

“Hi,” Keith says, still seated in the desk chair.

“What happened that made you contact me?” Pidge asks, crouching down by the dresser and pulling it back from the wall.

“Someone was in the hallway when there shouldn’t have been anyone there,” Keith says. “The lights were on.”

“We heard a sound, too,” Shiro adds. He perches on the edge of the bed, facing Keith, but following Pidge’s movements through the room. “It was kind of… wet. Slurpy.”

Pidge pushes the dresser back and paces the room to examine the corners. “Biological, you think?”

“Yeah, probably,” Keith says. “But I don’t know which species.”

“We can rule out human, Altean, and Galra, right?” Pidge asks. “We know them all pretty well and none of them move around in a way that sounds slurpy. What about the others?”

Keith shakes his head.

“Actually, Krolia said something about this,” Pidge says. “That the Tyen and the Lawafluye might have abilities they’ve been keeping to themselves. We were talking about Kosmo and how he can teleport. Maybe something like that?”

“They have a relatively well-developed public transportation infrastructure for two species that can teleport, if that’s the case,” Shiro points out.

“What if it’s like Alteans and alchemy and only some of them can do it?” Keith asks.

“Good point,” Pidge says, and Shiro wants to break into a grin but he doesn’t. _Progress_. Pidge gives him a look like she hacked into his brain and isn’t impressed. She says, “How would we go about figuring out if some of the Tyen or some of the Lawafluye have that kind of ability?”

Shiro glances at his hands in his lap, one flesh and one metal, and has an idea. “I think I know someone I can ask.”

 

* * *

 

Keith makes it through the third day somehow. Nobody lectures him, at least.

It’s night now, the first one without creepy encounters in the hallway or excessive consumption of alcohol, and Keith is desperate for Kosmo to show up so he can curl up in the hallway and catch an hour or two of sleep. Instead, Shiro just walked out of his door in a blue t-shirt sized for a much smaller man and a pair of jeans, sure signs of trouble.

“Where are you going?”

“Out,” Shiro says, flashing a smile. As smiles go, it’s quick and cheeky. Not the kind of thing that should knock Keith down for the count. But Keith has spent days watching Shiro’s face in meetings, and Shiro never looks at anyone else like that.

The knowledge is intoxicating and potentially lethal in the wrong dose. And Shiro always looks his most enticing—young, daring, a little bit dangerous—when he’s about to make a bad decision.

For an instant, all Keith wants is to grin, jump to his feet, and say _I’ll get my keys_. But he doesn’t have any keys to get, he hasn’t slept more than a few hours in the last two days, and someone was trying to murder Shiro as recently as last night, so instead he says, “No, you’re not.”

It’s a funny, unwanted role reversal for them, with Keith playing the authority figure to be defied and Shiro being reckless. Not that Shiro’s a stranger to risk-taking. Life was better when they were both sneaking out of the Garrison to race. Those times have never felt as close—and as impossibly far away—as they do right now.

Shiro leans in. His t-shirt exposes the hollow at the base of his throat and Keith has never seen anything more obscene in his life. Then, softly enough that Keith is forced to close the distance between them just to hear the words, Shiro smiles and says, “You don’t tell me what to do.”

Deliberately juvenile and provocative, and exactly the kind of thing that sixteen-year-old Keith would have said to him.

Keith doesn’t deserve to be taunted like this. As quietly as possible, he takes a steadying breath. He doesn’t step back because that would be admitting defeat.

“Shiro. There’s nothing on the schedule right now. You have another long day tomorrow. Someone was snooping around your room last night, possibly with the intent to kill you in your sleep.”

“All the more reason not to be here,” Shiro says. “And this isn’t on the schedule. It’s not official business. But if you’re too tired, you don’t have to come.”

Shiro knows what he’s doing, and Keith has no choice but to play into his hand. “Not an option.”

Shiro takes off, now familiar with the layout of the Governor’s Mansion, and leads them into the foggy city night. Vi Tyenaver smells different since Allura’s miracle, less acid and more alive somehow. It’s warm out, and Shiro looks at ease in his t-shirt. Keith’s uniform sticks to his skin.

They thread through a few small streets, Shiro occasionally checking his messages to assure himself of their route. Keith doesn’t ask where they’re going or who they’re meeting. It won’t change anything.

He does say, “How likely are we to get in a fight tonight?”

Shiro turns, the glint of bad choices visible in his eyes. “As if you’re ever not ready for that.”

“You’re not really going to cause a diplomatic incident just because you’re getting restless, right?”

Shiro doesn’t answer, instead turning back around to point at a literal hole in the ground and say, “This is it.”

There’s no door or covering on the hole, just a wooden ladder with rungs spaced for some non-human configuration of limbs. Keith insists on going first. It’s pitch black at the bottom and unspeakably hot. After his eyes adjust, he sees a Lawafluye. Skama, the one who was hitting on Shiro the first night.

As aliens go, the Lawafluye are good-looking—long and shimmery, they remind Keith of dragons—and Skama has a particularly abundant crest of blue feathers, but still, Keith doesn’t see the appeal. He doesn’t see the appeal of most humans, either.

Shiro climbs down the ladder at that moment.

“Nice to see you outside of work,” Skama says, his words slightly sibilant. He steps forward and gives Shiro an overly friendly hug that includes his tail wrapping around Shiro’s waist.

Ugh. It was bad enough guarding Shiro at all hours _before_ he started going on dates.

Skama holds up his datapad, which has a tiny light illuminated so they can see each other. “Sorry about the darkness. I turned the lamps off out here because I don’t think humans care for heat like we do and I wanted to give you time to adjust. But I brought you infrascreen. If you apply it, you should be more comfortable when we go inside. You’ll probably want to leave your clothes out here.”

 _What the fuck_. Keith swallows his objection when Shiro strips off his t-shirt.

“Ooh,” Skama says. “I’ve never seen a human without clothes before. Are you average, would you say?”

Keith almost blurts out _definitely not_ , but chokes it back in time. Thank fuck Skama’s not shining that light on his face. The light is all directed at Shiro, as it should be. He laughs at Skama’s question. It’s hard to tell if the flush spreading down his chest is from embarrassment or heat.

Shiro’s acquired a couple of scars Keith doesn’t recognize—one running down his left pectoral like someone went for the heart, and another more horizontal one at the height of his sternum—and his abs aren’t quite as rigidly defined as they were years ago, but other than that, he looks like he always has: sculpted, thick, touchable.

It was already uncomfortably hot in this stupid little cave. Keith shifts in his sweaty, tight clothes.

Skama passes Shiro a tube of something and Shiro opens his hand to squeeze some out.

“Wait,” Keith says. “What is that? Where did you get it? What’s in it?”

“Infrascreen,” Skama says, and it’s clear from his tone that he already explained this. Keith has got to focus on something other than Shiro’s naked skin. “It’s something the Tyen and other species use when they come to Lawafluyed dens and clubs like this one—not that many of them do. It will help you withstand the heat.”

“It’s okay, Keith,” Shiro says. “The bottle’s new. Hasn’t been opened yet. No one tampered with it.”

“You’re really going to put that on your skin?” Keith asks.

“Based on how hot it is out here, I think we’re going to need it,” Shiro says.

“Okay,” Keith bites out. If this is a plot to poison Shiro, he’s going to find out right now. “Me first.”

He pulls one of his sleeves up to the elbow and squirts a tiny amount of infrascreen on his forearm. It’s creamy like sunscreen, but it leaves a silvery smear on his skin. It doesn’t hurt.

“Yes,” Skama says, hesitant. “But that little bit isn’t going to do anything. You have to put it all over yourself. Besides, it will be much more comfortable inside without your clothes. Are humans really so shy? I’ve seen much less attractive species go naked.”

While Keith contemplates what to say to that, and whether this experience will be more survivable clothed or naked, Shiro laughs, removes the tube from Keith’s hands, and starts painting his chest silver with infrascreen.

A moment later, Shiro presses the tube back into Keith’s hands, then turns and exposes the broad naked expanse of his shoulders. “Do my back?”

 _Fuck_. Whatever this is, it’s not a date with Skama.

While Keith stands there dumbstruck, Shiro takes off his shoes and his jeans. Then, in nothing but a pair of black boxer briefs, he waits.

They are definitely on the scene of a murder, but Keith’s not sure if he’ll be the perpetrator or the victim. Shiro absolutely, one hundred percent did this on purpose. Nothing here has surprised him. He knew where they were going and what was going to happen when they arrived and he knew Keith couldn’t refuse to come with him and _fuck him_ , he’s enjoying it.

Fine. Keith is going to enjoy it too. Keith is going to enjoy it _more_.

Skama says, “If you’re uncertain about this process, I would be happy to—”

Keith cuts him off with a gesture. “I got this, thanks.”

He pours a generous amount into one palm and warms it between his hands, contemplating his options. He trails one fingertip down the ridges of Shiro’s spine, a silver track marking everywhere he’s touched.

Shiro’s ribcage expands as he sucks in a breath. Good.

Keith presses his hands into Shiro’s shoulders, painting with both palms, smoothing the infrascreen into his skin. He smears down to cover his ribs, the dip of his waist, the flare of his hips. Keith rests his hands there for a moment, then drags his index fingers under Shiro’s waistband, all the way around from his hipbones to the dimples on either side of his spine. Just because he can.

With his hands on Shiro’s back, Keith can feel every uneven breath, no matter how quiet.

Keith reaches up and runs his fingers down the back of Shiro’s neck, turning the skin there as silver as his hair, but more reflective. His fingertips map Shiro’s hairline and the lobes of his ears. Keith takes his time. This is, after all, a way of protecting Shiro, and that’s his job.

Shiro’s pulse thrums under his fingers.

When he finishes, Shiro turns to face him, his face already covered with silver paint. “Did I miss anywhere?”

Keith traces his thumb over the arch of one brow and then along the curve of Shiro’s cheekbone. He touches the bow of Shiro’s lips. Unnecessary—there’s already infrascreen there—and yet not.

“No,” he says at last.

Keith is hard. He knows without looking that Shiro is, too.

“Let me do you.”

Keith almost resists out of reflex. It would be easy enough to insist on his uniform, his weapons. But here in the dark, tired and bewildered and electrified with desire, he can’t remember why he keeps refusing himself the things he wants most.

He undoes his belt and then pulls up the hem of his tunic, stripping down efficiently.

Shiro lays hands on him, one set of warm, flesh-and-blood fingers, the other blunt and cool, and works in slow circles down Keith’s back. The touch is methodical, almost clinical, not lingering or provocative, and they’re standing in an alien cave preparing to do fuck-knows-what. Keith should be alert or anxious. Instead he can’t repress a shiver of pleasure. Shiro’s hands feel blissfully sensual; it’s the most anyone has touched him in years.

Shiro has such big hands. He’s being so gentle and careful. Keith has to pause in smearing infrascreen over his nose because for a moment, he can’t breathe.

Shiro finishes his back and turns him around. He sees the glob on Keith’s nose and smooths it across his skin, dabbing under Keith’s eyes and, when Keith closes them, across his lids.

“You have some in your lashes,” Shiro says, smiling.

“So do you.”

“That’s my natural color,” Shiro says. He looks Keith over one more time, then lays a hand on his shoulder. “Alright. I think we’re ready.”

“To join the circus,” Keith mutters. “Except no circus would have us.”

“Are you kidding? We could take up the flying trapeze and do a duo act called the Black Paladins, we’d be great. Besides, the silver suits you. Your eyes flash in the dark, you know.”

“It does,” Skama agrees. Keith had totally forgotten the Lawafluye was there, but of course he’s been watching the whole time. “It suits both of you. And it’s nice to see such affection between mates.”

Oh. Oh _shit_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is a line from Aimee Mann's "The Moth."
> 
> Also, it took all of my willpower not to tag this "LIZARD SEX SAUNA." Blessed are the tag wranglers. As for me, I will confine my shenanigans to [twitter](https://twitter.com/_cadignan/status/1095157766170296321).


	8. sit and chit and sit and chit-chat and smile

Diplomacy is slow and delicate work. You can’t just ask someone if their species’ ability to regenerate limbs might also sometimes manifest as an ability to, say, change size or shape in a way that allows them access to locked rooms. You have to work your way up to it, for example, by agreeing to go out to a club and have a drink with them, and maybe bringing your bodyguard who also just learned that he’s inadvertently posing as your mate.

Skama is taller than Shiro, and he has to duck to get under the tiny arched doorway that leads out of the dark vestibule where they’ve been applying infrascreen. Shiro and Keith took their time, and Skama’s… patience, to be courteous about it, was remarkable.

Shiro bends down so he doesn’t hit his head on the doorway. A moment later, he’s blasted with heat instead. It’s blistering inside the club, even naked and covered in infrascreen, and there’s barely any more light in this room than the last.

What light Shiro can see ricochets off scaled bodies, moving in a way that makes it clear what Lawafluye do for fun—each other, in a staggering variety of combinations.

Skama buys them drinks. It’s the same thing that got Shiro drunk on the first night, so he passes both glasses to Keith.

Keith frowns on receiving them, so Shiro leans in, smiles, and says, “Test those for poison.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about, _sweetheart_ ,” Keith says, light glinting off his fangs.

Shiro swallows. Teasing each other like this, driving closer and closer to the edge, it’s foolhardy. He knows that. Distracting, doomed to failure—Keith puts his mouth to the rim of Shiro’s glass and derails all of Shiro’s thoughts.

The strength of the liquor almost makes Keith cough, but he covers it in time. He tests the other glass and passes one to Shiro, wary. “Careful with that.”

They blew past _careful_ five minutes ago when Keith dedicated himself so thoroughly to giving Shiro an erection in public. Fuck, but Shiro can’t think about that no matter how much he wants to. He’s still half-hard, and Keith is standing so close, naked except for a pair of black boxer briefs and an attitude.

Keith started this. Shiro doesn’t want to stop. He takes a drink and says, “I can handle it.”

That’s weapons-grade skepticism in Keith’s expression. Sure, Shiro drank too much on the first night. He wasn’t talking about liquor.

Keith touches the small of his back and pushes him forward. They follow Skama through the room, single file, Keith’s hand on his skin somehow hotter than the air. There’s no music. Shiro feels like it’s loud, but it’s just the darkness and the heat and the press of bodies. Strange.

Skama leads them to an empty nook with a table in the middle and the three of them crowd in around it. Or Shiro thinks it’s a table. It’s an irregularly shaped slab of the same rock as the walls and the ledge they’re seated on. It probably gets used as a bed more often, judging by what everyone else is doing in here.

There are smears of silver on both glasses from Keith’s hands or his own. Keith’s, Shiro notices, is already half-empty.

Keith looks directly at Skama, then tilts his head at one of the other little nooks in the bar, and says, incredulously, “Are they _sleeping_?”

It’s a little too forward for Shiro’s personal diplomatic style, but it seems to work just fine in this case.

“Yes,” Skama says. “Does that surprise you?”

All the bravado Keith was directing Shiro’s way a second ago is gone. He stares. “Don’t they have… a den? Or a hotel? Or somewhere more private to go?”

“Probably. But it’s safe here. Why wouldn’t they sleep, if they’re tired? Does the sleeping bother you more than the sex?”

“I don’t know,” Keith says, as honest as ever. In a dazed tone, he adds, “I think maybe I’m jealous.”

Only Shiro hears that last part. It gives him a pang. Keith really is in bad shape. Shiro shouldn’t have dragged him here, no matter how electrifying it’s been. But they can’t leave yet. There’s work to be done.

Skama asks, “Do humans not sleep in public?”

“Not often,” Shiro says. “We’re more vulnerable. We don’t have scales. And we don’t always have mates to watch out for us.”

“The Tyen don’t have places like this,” Skama says. “Or maybe a few, but they’re not common. They mostly sit up extremely straight and have dull conversations where they pretend not to be interested in their own bodies. I told Nwa I was bringing you here and she said you would find it shocking, but you sounded like you wanted to know more about us, and this is what we’re like.”

Shiro recognizes the familiar form of address for Tyen Nwee. “The two of you are close, huh?”

“She’s my favorite. The smartest person I know. I invited her to join my den but she only likes her own kind, and females at that. The Tyen mate for life with one other person, you know. Extraordinarily picky. Oh, I’m sorry, that’s not meant to be a criticism of you two. I won’t be offended if you don’t come home with me; I know you only want each other.”

“You and everyone else in the galaxy,” Keith says under his breath.

Skama reaches across Shiro to pat Keith on his bare thigh. “You were very delicate, back there. It was nice of you to let me watch.”

The darkness and the infrascreen make it impossible to know for sure, but Shiro suspects Keith is blushing. He can feel Keith squirm. Keith reaches out and gulps down the rest of his drink. “Sure. Yeah. What’s a little striptease between allies?”

“I’m sorry, my translation tech is having trouble with this word.”

“For cultures that wear clothes, sometimes taking them off is… an erotic ritual,” Shiro explains. He clears his throat. “Keith is making a joke, though. What we did wasn’t as elaborate.”

“Oh,” Skama says, delighted. “That’s wonderful. I’m going to look it up. And I’m going to ask Nwa if the Tyen do that. I’ve never heard of it.”

“You do that,” Shiro says, hoping against hope that Skama is not planning to describe to another member of the Joint Parliament what he witnessed tonight. Is it better or worse that it will be a flattering description?

Shiro has to stop thinking about that. Seizing an opportunity, he says, “Do you know a lot about the Tyen? Because of your friendship with Tyen Nwee?”

“Yes,” Skama enthuses. “They’re fascinating.”

“Can they fly?” Shiro asks.

“Oh, no. Not really. They can sort of… fall with grace. But their wings are really important to them, and if you get to know them really well, you start to see how they use them as body language. Nwa folds hers in really tight and they get even taller when she’s irritated with me.”

“Does that happen a lot?” Keith asks, leaning in close to Shiro, his voice sweet with false naïveté.

“Only sometimes,” Skama says, sincere. “When you’re friends with someone from a different species, you have to make allowances. Sometimes she’s very rude to me, too. But we want to be friends, so we are.”

“That’s a good policy,” Shiro says.

“Of course it is. It’s how peace works,” Skama says. “What about you two? You’re human and Galra, aren’t you? Have you found any cultural differences?”

“Oh, Keith didn’t grow up—”

“Yes,” Keith interrupts, practically crawling into Shiro’s lap to address Skama. “Sometimes Shiro doesn’t tell me things that I _really_ , _really_ need to know. Isn’t that right, _babe_?”

“Ah,” Shiro says. Is Keith still mad about Skama thinking they’re mated? One offhand comment to Skama and Tyen Nwee at dinner is nothing compared to how Keith behaved in the entryway. If Skama thinks they’re involved, it’s half Keith’s fault. Shiro chooses his words with care. “That’s… true, I suppose. I’ll try to remember for next time how much you hate surprises.”

Shiro had his reasons for not telling Keith about tonight. Sure, most of those reasons were selfish, but at least one was that he didn’t want Keith to know his theory about Lawafluyed biology. Shiro’s waiting to see if Keith will draw the same conclusion independently.

“Oh no,” Keith says with more of that false sweetness. “Keep surprising me. I’ll return the favor.”

That’s a veiled threat, but it’s one that sets Shiro’s pulse racing. At this rate, he’s going to sweat off all his infrascreen and pass out from heatstroke before he gets any good information from Skama.

“It’s very nice to have both of you here,” Skama says. “I’ll confess I was skeptical of your relationship when Shiro first pointed you out, Keith, but I like you. And you run hot.”

That’s all too true. Keith is melting into Shiro’s side by now. His head is on Shiro’s shoulder, and his hair is going to have silver streaks in it tomorrow.

“I like the heat,” Keith says, without any malice or underlying meaning, and that’s when Shiro realizes how drunk he is. He yawns and nestles further into Shiro’s body.

So much for Keith independently confirming Shiro’s hypothesis.

“Not so offended by the idea of sleeping in public now,” Skama observes. “It’s good to be adaptable.”

“Speaking of being adaptable,” Shiro says. “I was wondering if you’d tell me more about regrowing your arm. Is that common, regrowing a limb?”

“Yes, we can all do it,” Skama says. “Some of us can do more.”

Just as Shiro is finally, finally about to learn what he came here to find out, there’s a crash at the front of the club. People flee their nooks for all sorts of darker spots and exits Shiro hadn’t noticed. Next to him, Keith startles awake.

Skama lets loose a flood of Lawafluyed, too fast and profane for Shiro’s translation tech to keep up with. Shiro lays a hand on his arm to get his attention and when Skama turns, all the feathers of his crest are standing straight up. “It’s Skarp,” he says. “The separatists. They’re here for me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from Aretha Franklin's "Dr. Feelgood" 😂


	9. you know it's obvious we naturally align

“What do you mean they’re here for you?” Shiro says urgently, grabbing Skama’s arm. “Are they here to kill you?”

It’s too late to answer that question. The bar has cleared out except for a tall, green-scaled, violet-feathered Lawafluye flanked by two slightly smaller ones with white scales, one with a white crest and the other with a blue crest. Keith recognizes the tall one from his readings: Gado, leader of the separatists, suspected in several instances of ideological violence. The separatists here work by a code: they blow up and burn buildings, but never ones with people inside.

Members of Skarp don’t, as far as Keith knows, come to bars to publicly execute their political enemies. The knowledge does nothing to relax him.

“Traitor,” Gado shouts at Skama. “You would sell out your people to slavers and graverobbers!”

“What?” Skama says. He delicately extracts his arm from Shiro’s grip and stands up, exiting the roughly circular nook around their table to face his accusers.

Next to Keith, Shiro’s shoulders knot together with tension. They’ve both been in enough fights to know when a conversation’s not going to solve things. The adrenaline surging through Keith’s body washes away his sleepy haze.

Keith spares a thought for his uniform and blade, left in the little vestibule on the opposite side of the bar. Taking out three giant scaly aliens while drunk and mostly naked isn’t impossible, but it’s not going to be pleasant.

Skama is waving his tail gently. Must be Lawafluyed body language for _I’m not a threat_. “I don’t like the Empire anymore than you, Gado. That’s why I’m working to free us.”

“The Empire,” Gado shrieks. Keith winces. There’s no need for that volume, not when she’s facing down Skama with six feet between them. Gado’s violet crest of feathers is rigid and her tail is whipping back and forth. “The Empire is breathing its death-rattle. I do not fear the Empire. It is—as it has always been—the Tyen who would murder and exploit us.”

One of the Lawafluye behind her hisses something that Keith belatedly understands as “Tyenfucker.”

The translation implant, usually so seamless that he forgets it’s there, has lagged twice tonight, a good reminder that the Empire isn’t monolingual. There are layers to this conversation that Keith will never understand.

“Not all the Tyen hate us,” Skama says, far calmer than Keith expects. “Some of them are devoted to peace. You are the ones causing violence. The Tyen don’t blow up buildings!”

“They are body-stealing _monsters_ and you would have us make _peace_ with them.”

Gado hurls herself at Skama and they go down in a scrabble of scales and claws. Shiro darts out of the booth and down to the floor to pull them apart, forcing Keith to vault over the table to guard his dumb ass against Gado’s henchmen. While Keith is kicking the blue-crested one in the stomach, Shiro wrests Gado off Skama and pins her to the floor.

The white-crested Lawafluye tries to rake their claws down Keith’s bare arm but he ducks low and sweeps his leg toward their haunch. They fall flat. Now the blue-crested one is diving toward Keith with his jaws snapping, light flashing off his rows of teeth. Keith rolls—toward his blade, away from Shiro, those are the only directions that matter—and the blue one comes down just out of biting distance.

Skama scuttles toward the bar’s back exit on all fours. He hesitates at the base of the ladder until Shiro, struggling with Gado, yells, “Go!”

Keith pushes himself up and dashes into the entryway for his blade. Both Lawafluye follow him into the tiny space. When Keith slashes at them, the blue-crested one goes wide-eyed, his crest of feathers wilting. He grabs the ladder and hauls himself up to flee. The white-crested one stays, snaking toward Keith while he dodges backward, the two of them twisting through the small space.

Keith has to get out; Shiro’s in the other room.

The Lawafluye blocks the bar entrance. They’re one and a half times his height, with a tail like an extra limb, so Keith pulls himself up the ladder with one hand, parrying the Lawafluye’s long snout and claws with his sword, and jumps. He lands on their torso, sending them sprawling.

The Lawafluye grabs him. But Keith is still covered in slippery infrascreen, so he slides right out of their scaly grip, leaving smears of dull silver all over their pearly scales. He steps on their throat as he runs into the other room. Their skull cracks against the floor.

Shiro and Gado are circling each other, both upright. Shiro’s not bleeding. He throws himself at Gado, his Altean fist ramming her in the stomach. Gado grunts, but it doesn’t slow her down. She launches herself at Shiro. Keith sprints, but by the time he gets there, Gado and Shiro are wrestling on the ground, all their limbs entangled.

Keith catches Shiro’s eye and he goes limp, letting Gado pin him to the floor. Keith points his blade at the back of her neck. “Let him go.”

Shiro shouts his name and Keith dodges just as the white-crested Lawafluye comes barreling out of the entryway. They snap at him, alternating slashes of claws and teeth, and he thrusts with his sword, its metal sparking against their scales.

With Keith occupied, Gado is free to move again, but Shiro slips out of reach of her claws, his infrascreen leaving streaks on the polished dark stone floor. He gets to his feet, dancing out of Gado’s way.

For just a moment, Shiro and Keith are back to back. Drunk and tired, bruised and filthy, bare skin flecked with lacerations from scales and claws, Keith suddenly feels alive. Light on his feet. A burst of laughter bubbles out of his throat. A sword in his hand and Shiro at his back? Fighting hasn’t been this much fun in years.

Gado and the white-crested Lawafluye close in, moving side to side, looking for openings. The white-crested Lawafluye bolts for him and Keith slices at their chest, his blade shearing off scales. The cut doesn’t slow them, so Keith chops downward and finally feels his blade sink into flesh, biting into the Lawafluye’s tough hide and cutting all the way through their tail. The Lawafluye bellows in pain, roaring syllables that his translator can’t catch, and then flees. The tail twitches on the ground once.

Keith whirls to find Shiro and Gado still locked in battle. He jabs with his blade, careful to avoid Shiro, and Gado twists to attack him. He parries. Now she’s caught between them, last Lawafluye standing. Wary of Keith’s sword, she lunges for Shiro, taking him to the ground.

Keith drops his sword and grabs for her shoulders, their ridges cutting into his palms. She turns her head to hiss at him, droplets of hot spit dotting his arms, and he yanks. Gado comes away from Shiro, but she and Keith go tumbling across the floor. Shiro takes a running jump and lands on Gado’s back, flattening her and Keith to the floor. Shiro wraps an arm around her chest and Keith reaches across the floor for his blade, aiming the tip at Gado’s eye.

Trapped, Gado stills.

They can restrain and interrogate her, if they can just find some—

She _liquifies_. In Shiro’s grip, her whole body dissolves into a rush of some mercury-like substance. Keith just manages to toss his sword aside before Shiro falls heavily on top of him. The liquid between them pours off of Keith’s body, pools on the floor next to him, and… slithers to the bar exit and up one pole of the wooden ladder.

Keith’s heart hammers in his chest. Was that… was that Gado? Is she still _alive_?

Was she the one in the hallway?

Keith and Shiro stare for a moment at the space where the puddle used to be, at the overturned tables and the wreckage of the bar—Shiro and Gado must have fought behind the counter at some point, there’s broken glass and the scent of sweet liquor on the air—and then at each other.

Keith is awash in sweat and infrascreen, alcohol and adrenaline, blood singing in his ears, wet heat sticking to his skin. Shiro is straddling him, heavy on his hips, grinning, his hair sticking up and his cheeks flushed where the silver has rubbed away in streaks.

Keith pulls him into a kiss.

The infrascreen on his lips is oily and faintly metallic, but Shiro’s mouth is sweet and warm. Not the sugar-sweetness of the cloying cocktail or the stifling, thick heat of the infrared lamps, but pure and silken. Keith closes his eyes and drinks it in, thirstier than he knew.

One hand drifts down Shiro’s back and the other cups his face, fingertips brushing the shell of his ear and the short hair behind it. Shiro sighs, his breath mingling with Keith’s, and Keith aches with it, his body tender with something other than bruises and cuts.

Why haven’t they ever done this before?

Shiro strokes his face, his fingers threading all the way back into the tangle of Keith’s braid. Keith can’t stop kissing him, and he hasn’t broken away. The minute they come up for air, things will be different. They’ll have to confront this.

Until then, all Keith wants to breathe is Shiro, and Shiro offers himself freely, laying down until they’re heartbeat to heartbeat. Keith’s hands are curled around his waist, but Keith can’t resist sliding one lower to cup Shiro’s ass.

At the touch, Shiro smiles against Keith’s lips and shifts his hips. Forward, backward, just a little. The friction of their cocks rubbing together through their underwear zings through Keith’s whole body, and he lets out a gasp and breaks the kiss.

He meets Shiro’s gaze.

“We should go,” Shiro says at the same that Keith says, “I’ll call Kosmo.”

 

* * *

 

The wolf takes them back to Shiro’s room, barefoot and bruised with their clothes in their hands. They don’t touch. Shiro’s heart races. What was that? The kiss, the fight, Gado?

“You should shower,” he says. Keith had been under Gado when she liquified and there are iridescent oil-slick tracks through the tarnished silver paint of the infrascreen. “We don’t know what that stuff is.”

“We should keep samples,” Keith says.

Shiro finds a plastic bag in his luggage and drops his underwear in it without comment. Keith does the same, then walks into the bathroom. Shiro lays out a towel and clean clothes on the bathroom counter, then goes to pace. Kosmo curls up outside the bathroom door, waiting for Keith.

Keith showers fast and comes out squeezing a towel around his damp hair, Shiro’s worn blue-grey sweatshirt hanging down almost to the hem of his boxer briefs, the ripped neckline exposing his collarbones and part of one shoulder.

Shiro just saw Keith naked. How can he possibly be more tempting with clothes on?

Shiro ducks into the shower to avoid answering his own question, scrubs off the oily slick all over his skin, then dries off and gets dressed while carefully thinking as little as possible. When he comes out, Keith is on the floor with Kosmo, his back against the wall and the wolf in his lap.

“Do you think it’s Gado?” Keith asks. “The murderer?”

“Skarp doesn’t like these peace talks. They want a separate Lawafluyed nation,” Shiro says, offering the most common and least important of the facts. “And I haven’t seen anybody else liquify themselves.”

“Hmm,” Keith says, his head lolling. His skin’s so pink with all the infrascreen scrubbed off. Shadows weigh down his eyes. He’s twisted his hair up into a messy bun on top of his head, further exposing the long column of his neck. A few stray strands have slipped out around his face and Shiro desperately wants to tuck them in.

They kissed. _Keith_ kissed _him_. Is he allowed?

Before Shiro can broach that topic, Keith says, “Where’s your first aid kit? I’m gonna treat your cuts.”

Shiro retrieves the kit from the bathroom. Keith extricates himself from Kosmo and gets up with great effort. Shiro sits on the bed and Keith joins him—funny, this is the first time that’s happened.

Keith takes Shiro’s left arm in hand and begins to swab ointment over each cut, working his way from palm to shoulder. It’s nothing like his application of infrascreen, but it still makes Shiro’s heart catch in his throat. Keith is exhausted, yet he insisted on this, and now he’s taking his time.

Shiro turns so Keith can check his back. In his firmest, most authoritative voice, he says, “You have to let me do yours, too.”

Shiro expects him to resist, and there’s a beat of silence. Then Keith says, “Okay.”

When he finishes treating Shiro, he strips off the sweatshirt and waits.

Like Shiro, Keith is covered with shallow cuts, plus two deeper wounds from claws instead of scales. They’ve all stopped bleeding, but Shiro doesn’t want to risk getting that liquid, whatever it was, inside them. The worst of the cuts is a jagged line curving over Keith’s calf. Keith rolls onto his stomach and Shiro lifts Keith’s leg into his lap to bandage it.

Keith is quiet and still under his hands, and Shiro is careful not to touch him more than necessary, out of fear of disturbing the moment. It’s different from the kiss, but no less intimate, letting someone see where you’re hurt.

Shiro wanted that kiss—still wants it, wants it again, wants it with the kind of desire that makes him dizzy—but it’s the rest of tonight he can’t live without. Keith’s rude asides, his grace and ferocity in the fight, his vulnerability right now. With every brush of his fingers, Shiro thinks _stay_.

When he finishes, Keith is asleep, face down with his head at the foot of the bed and his legs spread. It feels criminal to disturb him, but Shiro’s bed isn’t quite big enough to fit both of them like this.

Very, very gently, he scoops Keith up to rearrange him, but Keith comes awake in his arms. “Mm,” he says. “Fell asleep. Sorry.”

“Shh,” Shiro says. “It’s okay. Go back to sleep.”

Still bleary, his eyes half-closed, Keith shakes his head. “Can’t. Supposed to guard you.”

“Keith. You need sleep. We won the fight and I don’t think she’s coming back for us tonight. And Kosmo’s here. He’ll wake you.”

Despite his verbal protests, Keith hasn’t actually moved. He’s resting his head against Shiro’s chest. His eyes are fully closed now. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“I know,” Shiro says, laying Keith down with his head on the pillow. He smoothes Keith’s hair away from his face and pulls the covers over his body.

Shiro slips into bed, keeping a respectful distance between them. Keith is asleep and shouldn’t be disturbed. The wolf joins them, laying himself across both of their feet. It should be new and uncomfortable, having the warmth and weight of Keith and Kosmo in bed after so many years of sleeping alone, but it’s soothing. Shiro begins to drift off.

Then Keith rolls over to cling to him, startling him awake. “Mm?” Shiro asks.

No answer but the soft sound of breathing. Soundly asleep, Keith rests his head on Shiro’s chest, his ear to Shiro’s heart. Shiro relaxes beneath him, wraps an arm around Keith, and falls asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is from the Lucius song "Born-Again Teen," which is about dancing with someone you have a crush on, but hey, fighting, dancing, they're not that different.


	10. just one lousy dime, baby

Keith and Shiro are the last to arrive in Krolia’s apartment, half an hour late. Krolia does not smile at the sight of them together. This is serious business, after all, underscored by the excited babble of the three-year-old running circles around the living room. Melenor is showing her doll to anyone who will look up from their mug of what passes for coffee on Taranis. Someone—Krolia suspects Lance—has taken a pink marker to the doll’s brown cheeks and drawn Altean markings under the eyes.

Hunk, Pidge, Lance, and Allura are crammed onto the couch. Keith sits on the floor with Kosmo, and Shiro stands. He smiles at Krolia when she brings him a cup of coffee. “Sorry we’re late. I overslept.”

Shiro has never overslept in his life. “It’s alright. Let’s get started. You wanted to tell us something?”

Krolia offers Keith a mug, which he accepts. He looks tired, but better-rested than he has been. Their late arrival begins to make sense.

His hair is loose this morning, wavy and unbrushed, and Krolia itches to fix it. If everyone here were Galra, it wouldn’t bother anyone if she sat down behind him and braided his hair while he talked, but everyone here is _not_ Galra, least of all her very human son. If he wants to go out ungroomed, looking motherless and unloved, Krolia has to respect his choices.

Keith sweeps his hair over his shoulder. There’s a smear of something silver behind his ear.

“Last night Keith and I were out with one of the Joint Parliament members and we ran into some members of Skarp,” Shiro says. “They assaulted Skama—the member of parliament—so Keith and I stepped in.”

“Translation: a bar fight,” Pidge says.

Shiro eyes Krolia, waiting for a reaction that she doesn’t provide. He continues, “Yes. It got interesting at the end. Keith and I were fighting Gado, who’s a leader in the movement, and when we finally cornered her, she liquified.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Hunk says.

“Her whole body dissolved into goo,” Keith says. “It looked like liquid mercury. She turned into a puddle and then the puddle… left. Slid across the floor and up one of the exit ladders. Like it was still alive. Like it was sentient.”

“Oh, okay, so the giant bipedal feathery lizards can transform into sentient goo,” Hunk says. “That’s nice.”

“Goo!” Melenor repeats. She looks at her parents. “Mama, what’s ‘sentient’?”

“Good call asking your mom on that one, kiddo,” Lance says.

“You are, dear,” Allura says to her daughter, and Melenor scrunches up her features in consternation, then forgets the question and goes back to rocking her doll in her arms.

“I don’t think all of them can, though,” Shiro says, trying to pick up the important thread of the conversation. “Right before we got interrupted, Skama said something that made it sound like only a minority of Lawafluye can do it. But we know Gado can, and it’s clear what her motive would be. I think she was ready to—”

Melenor chooses that moment to bound across the room and hug Shiro’s legs. “Shiro, come play!”

“—put an end to Skama,” Shiro finishes, circumspect. He pats Melenor’s fluffy white hair. “I can’t play right now, Melenor, I’m talking.”

Allura and Lance both straighten, craning toward their child, and then Keith says, “Hey, Melenor, wanna pet Kosmo?”

Melenor turns to him, her eyes huge and wary, and purses her lips. She regards the wolf with equal apprehension. Everyone else in the room has gone silent. “He’s big.”

“He is big,” Keith agrees. “But he’s friendly. And he likes it if you rub his belly.”

Kosmo obligingly rolls over and allows Keith to demonstrate. Melenor’s face breaks into a smile and she drops to her knees in front of the wolf, puts aside her doll, and sinks both tiny hands into his fur. Keith smiles at her, seemingly oblivious to the stares from the rest of the room.

Lance is beaming. Allura is covering her mouth with one hand and trying to take a photo with the other. Pidge and Hunk are sharing a significant glance. Shiro’s biting his lower lip and looking like Krolia feels. She’s on the verge of turning into a puddle of goo herself, sentience debatable. Babies always make her emotional. At least she’s not alone this time.

Still watching Melenor and Kosmo, Keith speaks up. “Something doesn’t feel right about this.”

“From over here, it’s pretty adorable,” Hunk says.

Keith turns his head away and Krolia strongly suspects the loose curtain of his hair is covering a blush. “No, I mean the theory about Gado. It doesn’t make sense.”

“She has the motive and the means, doesn’t she?” Lance asks.

“Yeah, but… why go to the bar last night and confront Skama in person? The fight didn’t go her way.” Keith glances down at Melenor, still happily occupied with a very patient Kosmo, and says delicately, “The… _others_ weren’t like that. Slipping into someone’s room while they’re asleep, that’s a lot different from challenging them to a physical fight.”

An astute point. Krolia nods, then catches Shiro nodding and covering a yawn. She walks over to him to offer him more coffee. As he hands her his empty mug, she notices a silver smear on the ring finger of his prosthetic. It’s small, but it looks just like whatever is on Keith’s neck. Interesting.

Krolia gets Shiro a refill and he thanks her profusely. He has good manners—when he’s not lying about why he and Keith were half an hour late. Krolia can’t find it in her heart to get too mad about that. She should have known Keith would run himself ragged on this job. It’s good that Shiro is making sure he gets some sleep.

And Keith hasn’t glared at her once since he arrived.

“Keith’s right,” Pidge says, and Krolia is secretly pleased to see Pidge align herself with Keith. Maybe her anger is ebbing. “Whoever it is can drain people of their quintessence. Allura and I have been talking about it, and we think it’s possible they have a device that recreates the Komar experiment on an individual scale. Creepy as fu—fudge, and obviously morally atrocious, but impressive. If you can do that, why bother with the bar fight?”

“I like this dog!” Melenor announces to Keith.

“He likes you, too,” Keith says. “See how his tail is wagging? That means he’s happy. His name is Kosmo.”

“Kosmo!” Melenor bends over and presses her face to his belly. Then she gets up and walks—in the unsteady gait of human toddlers that always makes Krolia’s heart ache, wondering about the childhood she missed—over to Keith and plops herself down in his lap. “I like you.”

“Uh. Thanks. I like you, too.”

Melenor winds a hank of Keith’s hair around her fist, not at all gently. “Your hair is pretty.”

“Melenor—” Allura warns.

“No, it’s alright. She’s not hurting me.” Then, solemnly, Keith adds, “You have pretty hair, too, Melenor.”

Melenor bounces happily in his lap, then goes back to petting Kosmo. Krolia has to avert her eyes because otherwise she’ll melt.

“Not to be a buzzkill, but we should probably get back to business,” Pidge says.

“Yeah, none of this is making me feel great about Gado,” Lance says. “All we have to exonerate her is a quibble about method. Shouldn’t we be calling the police? What exactly is the plan here?”

“If we call the police and they bring Gado in with no real evidence, everyone else in Skarp will get angry and do whatever they can to jeopardize the talks,” Shiro says.

“Oh, like murdering people, you mean?” Lance asks.

“It seems wise to hold off for now,” Allura says.

“Let me talk to Skama and find out more about this ability,” Shiro says. “In the meantime, we did… collect a sample for analysis.”

“Just what I always wanted,” Pidge says. “Sentient goo.”

 

* * *

 

Pidge commandeers a lab space on the Coalition transport ship within minutes of their meeting concluding. Keith barely made it out, and that was only by promising Melenor that he would come see her “after the grown-ups are done talking.”

He has a feeling Shiro is still laughing at him. There aren’t any grown-ups here.

“So,” Pidge says. “Sample. Gimme.”

“Uh,” Keith says. “It’s, um…”

She snaps on a pair of gloves and adjusts her safety glasses. “Goo, I know. I told your mom I wasn’t into squishy stuff, but I meant _feelings_. For sentient lizard goo, I can make an exception. I’m ready. Let’s go.”

Shiro passes her the plastic bag, which she opens and stares down into. “Oh, it’s your clothes. Whatever. Who cares.” She sets it down on the lab bench and pulls out the first pair of boxer briefs. She pinches both side seams and holds them up, all spread out like a flag. Both pairs are black, but the ones in her hands belonged to Shiro—there’s a silver handprint on one ass cheek.

Pidge hasn’t seen it yet because it’s facing them.

Shiro must not have noticed the handprint when he bagged them up last night, because he’s nervously clutching both hands behind him and rocking back on his heels, which is about half a step from aimless whistling. Keith raises his eyebrows and Shiro coughs.

Pidge lowers the underwear and narrows her eyes at them.

Okay. So maybe Keith’s face is feeling a little warm, too. Maybe he’s shifting in his uniform, since underneath it is another pair of Shiro’s underwear—no. Stop. Stop thinking about Shiro, and underwear, and waking up in Shiro’s bed after kissing—

Pointedly, Pidge flips the underwear so she can see the back. The handprint makes her burst out laughing. “Well. That’s… can’t call it unexpected, I don’t think. What’s all this silvery stuff? That’s not what we’re interested in, right?”

“No, that’s just infrascreen,” Keith says, his calm voice a surprise, like some other force took over his body and granted him composure.

“Oh, that heat-reflective stuff—wait, where _were_ you? All you said was ‘a bar.’”

“The Lawafluye like it hot,” Shiro says neutrally.

“And you were only wearing your underwear and infrascreen,” Pidge says. “Must’ve been a party.”

“It was certainly something,” Shiro says, which is good, because Keith has _no idea_ what he would say to that. “There’s not much residue left from Gado’s transformation because she, uh, took most of herself with her? But those clear, iridescent patches—that’s it.”

“Alright,” she says, opening one of the lab’s many giant chrome instruments. “Ablation spectrometer it is then.”

Something buzzes, and then Shiro pulls out his datapad and says, “Shit. It’s Skama. I should talk to him.”

He strides out, leaving Keith alone with Pidge and last night’s underwear. Okay then.

Keith watches her work in silence for a moment, yearning for a time when she might have cheerfully chattered at him about the inquiries she was making. “Hey, Pidge?”

“Yeah?”

“I just… want you to know I’m sorry,” Keith says.

“And I won’t do it again,” she says.

“What?”

“That’s what you’re supposed to say next. After ‘I’m sorry,’ you say ‘and I won’t do it again.’” She turns away from the bench and stares at him expectantly.

“I don’t know if that’s true,” he says slowly. She wants too much from him. He can’t promise he’ll go back to Earth. Where _is_ he going after Taranis? Probably on his next mission. It’s not like he has a home to go to.

“Then don’t say sorry,” Pidge says. “Because you aren’t.”

“I’m not lying to you about being sorry. I _am_ sorry.”

“Not enough not to do it again.”

“Look,” Keith says. “I’m going back out there. The galaxy’s still littered with people who should be in prison for their crimes. _Someone_ has to bring them to justice.”

“You think _that_ ’s what I’m mad about? Go be a space cowboy if that’s what you really want. Good for you. I’m mad because you _pretended to be dead_.”

Of course Pidge would hate that. He’d been in too much pain to care.

“I didn’t mean to,” he says, and it sounds exactly as weak as it feels. Where is his voice? How can he explain himself? Even the thought of those raw days around Shiro’s wedding date makes him want to claw at his chest. Leaving had been his only option. He couldn’t stop loving Shiro, but he could put a galaxy between them. Space was the only place Keith could breathe.

“I just… _everybody_ knew, and I couldn’t take it, the pity—and I couldn’t stand the idea of having you tell me stories about Shiro and—”

“Who the hell do you think we are?” Pidge demands. “ _None_ of us would have done that. Have I ever told you a story about another human being in my life? Is that the kind of thing I usually bring up? I just wanted you to call me up every couple of weeks and talk to me about your engine for twenty minutes so I would know you weren’t dead, you fucking _asshole_.”

Pidge bursts into tears, rips off her safety glasses and gloves, and wipes angrily at her eyes.

Shit. The sight of Pidge crying makes his throat close up and his eyes sting. Why is Shiro still out in the hall—oh. _Keith_ doesn’t know what to do, but he knows what Shiro would do. He takes a step toward Pidge and tentatively wraps his arms around her. Her body is wracked with another sob, and then she clings to him.

“I really am sorry,” he says to the top of her head, his voice thick and rough. “You’re right. It was an asshole thing to do. I’ll call you next time, okay?”

“Okay,” she says into his chest. She keeps her head tucked there for another moment and then lets go of him. She wipes at her face again. “Now I’m gonna do some science.”

“Sounds great,” Keith tells her. He manages not to gulp for air too loudly.

“This is an ablation spectrometer,” she says, her voice a little shaky. “It’s gonna fire a laser at this little sample of Shiro’s underwear—no joke—and blast off bits of the surface. This first sample is just some fabric and some infrascreen, so we’ll know which peaks matter when we analyze the resulting spectra. Then we’ll do a sample with the goo. The graph’s gonna be _crazy_ , I bet. Get excited.”

“Oh, I am,” Keith says, deadpan. Then he smiles. “How do you know it’s Shiro’s underwear?”

“I’m a genius,” she says, equally dry. “Also, are we talking about this? Because for the record, I don’t care. You and Shiro can do or not do whatever you want, I will never offer you my opinion on it, I will not mention it to anyone, and as long as you don’t run off again without leaving a note, we’re cool.”

“Cool,” Keith says. “I won’t.”

“Also,” Pidge says. “After I say this, we can be done, but I’m already all gross from crying so I’m gonna go for it. I know I’ve been pissed these past few days. But I think you get now that I had a legitimate reason for acting the way I did, and I just wanted to say… I know you did, too.”

Keith seems to have misplaced his voice again, so he nods.

Pidge gives him one sharp nod in return and then looks at the ceiling and blinks away tears. “Whew. Okay. Science. Wanna fire a laser?”

“Yeah,” Keith says. “Obviously.”

 

* * *

 

Pidge and Keith are side by side and examining something on the lab bench when Shiro re-enters the room. He wishes he didn’t have to interrupt.

“Keith. We have to go. Skama says Gado was attacked last night after she left and she’s in the hospital now, asking to see all three of us.”

Is it Shiro’s imagination or does Keith’s face fall at the sight of him? Maybe it’s just the bad news he’s bearing.

Either way, Keith wastes no time joining him in the doorway. Before stepping out into the hall, he says, “Sorry, Pidge, we’ll be back later.”

Pidge waves them away. “Go. I got this.”

Keith smiles at her. His eyes look a little red, and Shiro knows better than to wake that sleeping dog. Instead, he says, “Can you call Kosmo to take us to the hospital?”

“Yeah,” Keith says, and it happens so fast Shiro is dizzy when they arrive.

Skama nods at them, and it’s hard to read Lawafluyed facial expressions, but Shiro could swear he’s relieved.

Shiro should have known it would be suffocatingly hot in a Lawafluyed hospital. Instead of a bed with a mattress and sheets, Gado is curled up on a giant flat stone directly under a heat lamp. Her crest of violet feathers hangs limp and ragged down the back of her head. She looks far smaller and more brittle than she did last night when she was trying to rake her claws through Shiro’s vital organs.Scabs have formed on her skin where some scales have fallen off, and the remainder of her scales have lost their green sheen. Her tail is tucked under her body. She lifts her head when they enter and lets out a low hiss.

“We’re not here to hurt you,” Shiro says.

“I know,” she says. “You’re not the ones who nearly killed me last night.”

That’s an optimistic assessment of their fight on her part, but in the interest of diplomacy, Shiro lets it slide.

“Someone came into my den and tried to suck out my quintessence,” Gado continues. “I fought back hard and still nearly lost. I would have died if my mates hadn’t saved me—which they only did by setting fire to half our den.”

“Did you see your attacker?” Keith asks.

Shiro knows the answer before Gado shakes her head. She would have told them already if she knew. “Do you think your attacker was Lawafluyed?”

“No.”

“Why not? They had to get into your den somehow. What if they liquified themselves like you did?”

“I can’t say how they got in,” Gado allows. “But they were impossible to see during the fight. No Lawafluye can do that, but some Tyen can.”

The Tyen can turn invisible? There is all kinds of information that no one volunteered. “Why didn’t anyone mention this before?”

Gado flicks her tail. “The Tyen keep their secrets. Why don’t you ask them?”

“Gado,” Skama says. “Why do you think you were targeted? The previous two victims were Joint Parliament members.”

“You think it’s because of that,” Gado says. “The Joint Parliament. This farce of ‘peace’ you’re playing at. That’s not all it is.”

“Then what is it?” Keith asks.

“I told you,” Gado says. “The Tyen are murdering and exploiting us for profit, as they always have and always will. I want to stop them; they want me dead. The murderer is a Tyen, or someone in business with them. Go to Mwa Zhe Ma Foo’s filthy house and see for yourselves if you don’t believe me.”

“That name wasn’t in any of the materials I read,” Keith says. “Can you give us some context?”

“A Tyenaver businessman,” Skama says with distaste. “And an unsavory character, but a powerful one. He did well under the Empire. He’s been outspoken about his views.”

“Which are?” Keith presses.

“You cower from the truth,” Gado says to Skama. She spits on the floor and Shiro has a sudden flashback to last night. Even in diminished health and the pale light of this hospital room, Gado is still eight feet of muscle, scales, claws, and rage. “ _Businessman_. _Views_. Zhe is a festering sore of a crimelord who treats Lawafluye as disposable animals. His blood money used to come from a mine he owned, but once the Galra had depleted it, he branched out into running a protection racket. Because his greed knows no bounds and his heart is a sucking void, he has expanded his business to exploit the last remaining resource of Taranis: the bodies of its one true people.”

“Do you have any evidence for this claim?” Skama asks.

Gado hisses. “I was nearly murdered for what I know. If you are only here to ask me useless questions, get out.”

Skama stands up straighter. “You tried to kill _me_ last night. I want to know why you’re suddenly willing to talk.”

“I came to understand that you were ignorant, and thus innocent,” Gado says. “I am too weak to seek my own retribution now. Your foreign friends acquitted themselves well in the fight, so I am entrusting them with this information in the hopes that they will see it done. Your peace is a fool’s errand, but I believe in vengeance.”

“We’re not your hired thugs,” Keith says.

“We’re not going to kill Tyen Zhe,” Shiro says, softening Keith’s words into a negotiation. “But if he’s guilty, we will see him tried and sentenced. If we help you, what assurance do we have from you that Skarp won’t further disrupt the peace talks or assault any Joint Parliament members?”

“Independence is the only path to peace,” Gado says.

“As drafted, the constitution designates a region of autonomous Lawafluyed control on the other side of the Tyenaver river,” Shiro says. “You don’t need to fight for it; it’s yours. I can show you the proposed borders right now if you want.”

“That is… good.” Gado sounds surprised. She turns toward Skama. “You did that?”

“With help,” Skama says, tilting his head toward Shiro.

“I am sorry for trying to kill you,” Gado says to Skama. “You are not a worthless traitor after all.”

“Such praise might make my heart give out.”

“We are not friends yet,” Gado says, her voice low and threatening. She closes her eyes and lays her head back down on her rock, her tail waving. “I tire of your company. Come back with Zhe in chains.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is a line from Prince's song "How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore" (also covered by Alicia Keys, but she changes "dime" to "quarter," lol).


	11. don't get around much anymore

“Absolutely not,” Tyen Nwee says, her wings stiff and close to her body.

This is the first time Keith has spoken to her directly. He has a dim memory from the bar of Skama saying _Nwa folds hers in really tight and they get even taller when she’s irritated with me_ , and that tracks. She’s tall enough to meet Skama’s gaze, but with her wings folded, she seems even taller, and the two of them tower over all the human-sized furniture in Shiro’s room. Keith and Shiro are standing, since it seems rude to sit down when none of the furniture is designed for their guests, and somehow that contributes to the air of tension in the room.

Keith is used to being the smallest one in a group. He copes by imagining how things would go in a fight. If Tyen Nwee really is flightless, her wings are probably a liability—

“I can’t be in the same room as that monster. I can’t go to his _house_.”

“Well, he’s not going to invite _me_ ,” Skama says. “Please, Nwa? You can lie and say you’re interested in becoming allies or business partners. You have a lot of power. He’ll let you in, and you can bring Shiro and Keith and they’ll search his house.”

“You really think that violent Skarp ideologue is telling the truth?” Tyen Nwee asks, her lips twisting in a frown. The Tyen fall into that strange category of aliens that look almost, but not quite, human. Keith is in that category himself, and it’s the one that makes him most wary. They’re the easiest to misread in social situations, since it’s so tempting to humanize them, and, unfortunately, they’re also the most likely to approach Keith when he’s looking for a solitary drink in some dive bar at the ass-end of the galaxy. A bad combination.

Tyen Nwee’s not going to proposition him, and he’s pretty sure he’s reading her mood right.

“Yes,” Keith says, which makes everyone stare at him. Tyen Nwee directed her question at Skama and wasn’t expecting Keith’s opinion. He forges ahead anyway. “Gado shouldn’t have attacked us in the bar, but I don’t think that was official Skarp business. She was hurt and lashing out—probably because she discovered something that really upset her. We should look into it.”

“She made some very troubling accusations,” Skama says. He gives Tyen Nwee a searching look. “Trafficking, it sounds like.”

Tyen Nwee sucks in a breath. “That’s horrific.”

“We think it’s worth checking out,” Shiro says.

“So that’s all it takes for you to risk your lives? The word of a madwoman?” Tyen Nwee says.

“She’s not a madwoman. Skarp has legitimate complaints,” Keith says. Shiro is staring at him wide-eyed. Keith has a feeling Shiro would be frantically swiping his hand across his throat if the gesture weren’t so obvious.

“You think blowing up buildings is acceptable as political discourse,” Tyen Nwee says, her black eyes boring into him and her wings practically quivering.

Keith can’t back down. “Yes. The Blade used those tactics against the Empire.”

“ _We_ are not the Empire.”

“You’re not. But those tactics have their place. And Skarp doesn’t kill anybody. I respect that.”

“Hmph,” Tyen Nwee says. “I can’t agree with you about Skarp, but I suppose if you survived a fight with Gado and are now willing to defend her to me, you must really believe her.”

“Does that mean you’ll help us?” Keith asks. “We’re going either way. It’s just a question of whether we walk in the front door with you or break in through the back.”

“We would really appreciate your help,” Shiro says. “It would be good if we could talk to Tyen Zhe, and that will be easier if you introduce us.”

Tyen Nwee sighs and her wings relax at last. She opens them once and folds them back up again in a way that reminds Keith of a shrug. “I will do what I can. Tyen Zhe is unlikely to regard me highly, despite my position. It’s not a secret that my mate is also female. Tyen Zhe is traditional and won’t like that. It makes me an improbable choice as your ticket into his home.”

“Are… _we_ going to be a problem?” Shiro asks, tentative, reminding Keith that no one has ever clarified for Skama and Nwa that Keith and Shiro aren’t together. They haven’t clarified it for themselves, either, this game. Keith suspects it’s the kind of game where everybody loses, but he can’t seem to stop playing.

He kissed Shiro. Whatever else happens, he’ll have that. Keith doesn’t have to die without knowing, now.

He just has to live with wanting it again.

That shouldn’t feel so different—wanting Shiro is his default state—and yet it’s a whole universe apart from his life before. That kiss was a trans-reality comet; it shot them into this timeline. There’s no going back. Somewhere out there in the branchings of the multiverse, there’s a Keith who didn’t kiss Shiro in the bar. He pities that version of himself.

Then again, somewhere way back in all these tangled timelines, there’s a Keith who’s bolder than him, a Keith who kissed Shiro _before_ he married someone else. A Keith who kissed Shiro after saving him from Sendak. A Keith who kissed Shiro when he woke up after being resurrected. A Keith who kissed Shiro when they were stranded on that planet alone. Maybe even a Keith who kissed Shiro after he came back from the Kerberos mission. Out of all of those versions, how many times did Shiro kiss him back?

The odds are incalculable. Here, now, in this timeline, all Keith can do is play out the rest of their game.

Nwa is shaking her head in response to Shiro’s question. “He won’t expect you to know anything about proper behavior, alien degenerates that you are. I, however, am a stain upon our people.” She holds Shiro’s gaze for a moment too long, her large black eyes unblinking.

“I’m sorry we’re asking you to do this,” Shiro says, sympathy in his voice. “But it’s only one time, and it might be really important. Thank you for agreeing to help.”

Tyen Zhe flaps one wing in Keith’s direction. “I like this one. _Kwee esk_ to argue with a government official you’ve barely met. The two of you have inspired me to take a leap. I can put up with Tyen Zhe for one evening if it means we might take down all or part of his organization. I’ll have a few things delivered here later so you’ll both have something to wear.”

“Thank you, but we’ve been avoiding local dress so as not to show favoritism,” Shiro says. “Since the Lawafluye don’t wear clothes, wearing Tyenaver dress would be like stating a preference.”

“Exactly,” Tyen Nwee says. “If I have to lie to get into Tyen Zhe’s good graces, so do you.”

She turns to go, and Keith says, “Wait. Sorry, what’s _kwee esk_? My translator didn’t catch that.”

“It means she likes difficult, opinionated people,” Skama says. “It’s why we’re friends.”

Tyen Nwee laughs, revealing a flash of white teeth, bright against her slate-grey skin. She brushes one of her wings against Skama. “And because you’re so funny, Skama—do you really not know what _kwee_ is, even after knowing me for so long?”

“Of course I know what it is,” Skama says. “But if I say it, you’ll tell me I’m rude.”

“You think it’s something rude!” Tyen Nwee says, scandalized. “It’s not rude, it’s beautiful. Keith, that term has to do with flying.”

“I thought you couldn’t fly?” Keith asks.

“Well,” Tyen Nwee says. “We can’t take off from the ground. But we can glide if we jump from a high enough departure point. _Kwee_ is—it’s a kind of love, I think. Love for the moment when there’s nothing beneath your feet.”

“Oh,” Keith says, astonished to be understood by a stranger. “That’s… thank you.”

“Most people—even those of us with wings—don’t like that instant of freefall. They prefer to keep their feet on the ground. But real Tyenaver gliding is a sight to see, and if you have time after the talks, I’ll take you to a place where you can watch some.” She pats Shiro on the shoulder. “This one is _kwee esk_ , too, I can tell. He’s just better at hiding it.”

Shiro turns his head at the praise, embarrassment and pleasure inscribed in the downward sweep of his lashes and the curve of his smile. Watching him, Keith could soar or plummet.

 

* * *

 

“Secrets for everybody!” Pidge cries when Krolia tells her that some of the Tyen can camouflage themselves to the point of invisibility. “Why not!”

They’re in the lab Pidge commandeered, every surface of which is now festooned with printouts of graphs and blueprints. In the center of the rooms, there are projections of 3-D holographs that Krolia doesn’t understand. Hunk is sitting cross-legged on the floor with a datapad in his lap and Pidge is standing opposite him, manipulating the holograph with her gloved hands.

“What… what exactly is going on here?” Krolia asks.

“The lizards go all gooey, sure,” Hunk says, not looking up. “And somehow the goo remembers, and then they can be lizards again. Like a caterpillar into a butterfly, except they can do it any time they’re threatened. But that’s it. They can liquify and re-solidify themselves. So sure. We can get a lizard into a locked room, through vents or a crack or whatever. No problem. But the Lawafluye are naked all the time, and they can’t take anything with them in goo form.”

Pidge finishes for him, “So how does our hypothetical mini-Komar device get into the locked room with the Lawafluye? Is it planted in the room beforehand? Is the device _also_ —somehow—made of goo?”

“Ah,” Krolia says. Underneath the strong scent of coffee, something smells a little off in here, like maybe Pidge and Hunk haven’t left since they started this project last quintant. “These are good questions.”

“And now you tell us the murderer is invisible,” Pidge says, throwing her arms up, “which is something some of the Tyen can do, apparently, even though no one told us, but none of the Lawafluye can! That’s fine. It’s great. I love solving two impossible problems at once!”

Hunk chucks a balled-up piece of paper at her. “Stop it. New information is good. Let’s go back to the beginning.”

“Two victims,” Pidge says. “Both stripped of quintessence until they died.”

“Found dead in locked rooms,” Hunk says. “One Tyen, one Lawafluye.”

“If the murderer is a Lawafluye who can goo themself, that explains how they got into the locked room,” Pidge says. “But it doesn’t explain Gado’s attacker, who was apparently invisible.”

“Unless Gado is lying,” Krolia says. “But Keith didn’t think she was.”

“I can’t believe they almost killed each other thirty-six hours ago and now they have some kind of weird freedom-fighter trust bond. Your son is a fucking weirdo,” Pidge says. “No offense.”

Krolia represses a smile. “None taken.”

“Possibilities,” Hunk says. “One: what if the person who attacked Gado is different from the person who murdered Yuma and Tyen Sho?”

“Meaning we’re looking for two different people,” Krolia says. “Okay. But that doesn’t solve your device-in-the-room problem, _and_ it doesn’t explain how Gado’s invisible attacker got into her den.”

“Possibility two,” Hunk says. “There’s only one murderer, and somehow they simultaneously possess the ability to liquify themselves, to become invisible, _and_ to extract quintessence.”

“You mean… no device,” Pidge says, turning slowly toward Hunk. She grips her own hair and bursts out laughing. “Hunk, that’s _it_! We spent all fucking night trying to come up with a device that doesn’t exist!”

“Wait, what?” Hunk says. He taps a finger against his lips and frowns. “I was just spitballing. How can there be no device?”

“Like Honerva!” Pidge says. She dances from one foot to the other, gesticulating. “Some kind of magic bullshit we don’t understand! It’s the only answer! Somebody call Allura, this is her problem now!”

“But that still doesn’t explain how one person can have all these abilities,” Hunk says. He sighs. “I think maybe we need a walk or a snack or a nap or a shower.”

“I would suggest all of that even if you had definitively solved the mystery,” Krolia says mildly. She finishes tapping at her datapad. “But for now, please wait for Allura to show up.”

“Oh, you actually called her?” Pidge says. “I was… mostly joking. I know she has important miracles to work and stuff. Plus a baby.”

“She’s happy to help. You two are working just as many miracles,” Krolia assures her. “Thank you for all of this.”

Allura enters the lab a few minutes later, after Pidge and Hunk have both had another cup of coffee, and she looks alarmed when they both call her name. “Er… hello.”

“If you sucked out enough of somebody’s quintessence, could you gain their abilities?” Pidge asks, at a speed that verges on indecipherable and a volume that is perhaps unnecessary.

“I… don’t know,” Allura says. “I’m not in the habit of extracting quintessence from individuals. It’s dangerous.”

“Experiment time!” Pidge says, rolling up the sleeve of her lab coat and sticking out her arm. “Take some of mine and then tell me how many digits of Pi you can recite.”

“Wait,” Hunk says, and Allura glances between them, wild-eyed. “That’s an interesting question, but what we really need is for Allura to acquire, via quintessence, a physiological capability that she doesn’t naturally possess.”

“But she can shapeshift already,” Pidge protests.

“Bet she can’t goo herself,” Hunk says.

Allura stares at the ceiling and takes a deep breath. “Can someone please explain to me what is going on in here?”

“I got this,” Pidge says to Hunk. “Find us a willing lizard.”

Krolia clears her throat. “Thank you all very much for continuing to work on this. If you don’t mind, I have a meeting with the Governor.”

 

* * *

 

Eerie, halting music filters through the thicket of black vines that serves as the façade of Tyen Zhe’s house. Keith shivers even though the air is warm. “Why does it sound like that? All that stopping and starting?”

“What do you mean, stopping and starting?” Tyen Nwee asks, squinting at him in the fading daylight. She’s given both of them permission to address her as Nwa, but Keith is having trouble keeping the new name in his head.

Nwa is wearing the same kind of long dress as usual, and this one is a soft pastel blue. There’s a silver circlet in her short black hair and silver earrings all the way up her pointed ears. She looks a lot more at ease in her Tyenaver formalwear than either Shiro or Keith. “Oh, Krolia mentioned this. Humans and Galra can’t hear like us. It’s too bad, really, the music is pleasant.”

The implication that the rest of the evening will be unpleasant remains unspoken, but Keith can hear _that_ just fine.

Nwa walks a few paces ahead of them on the path. Keith is grateful that it’s level, and that the entrance to Tyen Zhe’s house doesn’t have any stairs. The fabric swishing around his ankles doesn’t bother him too much—the skirt has a slit in it, so if he needs to fight, he’ll be fine—but the combination of heeled sandals and biological architecture makes him nervous for Shiro.

“How did you get so good at walking in heels?” Shiro says under his breath. Keith grabs his elbow to steady him.

He has to focus on Shiro’s balance. Otherwise he’ll think about Shiro’s back, exposed from shoulders to waist by the drape of his gown, since all Tyenaver clothes are designed to accommodate wings. Nothing is stopping Keith from reaching out and running his hand down Shiro’s bare skin.

Nothing except their very important mission, which includes this conversation about heels.

“They’re a good way to smuggle sharp objects into places that have policies against weapons,” Keith says. “With the right pair of stilettos, you can slash a throat just as well as with a knife.”

Shiro smiles and shakes his head. “I should’ve known you’d answer that way, and that you’d come armed.”

“It’s my job,” Keith protests. He’s worn all kinds of weird stuff to blend in on missions. This is nothing.

“Don’t worry,” Shiro says, and stops to give him a significant look. “I’m armed everywhere I go.”

Keith rolls his eyes and huffs instead of laughing. On impulse, he lets go of Shiro’s elbow, finds the slit in his skirt and pushes some of the black fabric aside, showing a flash of pale skin. His blade is strapped to his thigh.

Shiro makes a choked noise, averts his eyes, then sneaks a second look.

Keith smiles. “Last time you took me out, I needed this. Now, c’mon. Keep your hips loose and walk heel to toe.”

Shiro gets the hang of it quickly. The house creeps up on them, a mass of entwined dead vines echoing with strange music. It’s like entering a dark forest: the central hall has a high ceiling, as far as Keith can tell, the walls disappearing into the darkness above. There are a few lights strung up on branches, but the lighting’s not so much atmospheric as barely visible. The Tyen have superb hearing and poor eyesight. Not the most advantageous conditions for a fight. Keith tightens his grip on Shiro’s elbow.

“Yeah,” Shiro murmurs. “I know.”

Nwa’s light blue clothing stands out among the darker shades preferred by the other guests. Keith and Shiro are both wearing shimmering black, which means it’ll be harder to find Shiro in the crowd if they get separated. Here and there, flashes of jewelry catch the light. The other guests must be wearing silver like Nwa.

Keith looks again. No, that’s not a flash of silver. It’s green. And over there, on someone’s grey wrist, a bracelet of iridescent white.

“Shiro,” he says, as low as possible. “Those are scales.”

A guest brushes past them, laughing, an elaborate necklace of blue feathers ringing her neck. Keith feels sick.

Shiro turns toward him and puts his mouth close to Keith’s ear. “How good is their hearing?”

Keith swallows. “Too good.”

Nwa has walked right up to someone who must be their host. He’s unusually broad-chested for a Tyen, his black wings half-open and relaxed behind his body. He’s wearing the same unisex garment as everyone else, immaculate white like the long necklace of pearly scales hanging from his neck. His thick arms are ringed from wrist to elbow with bracelets.

No wonder Nwa didn’t want to come. She didn’t even know about the trade in Lawafluyed body parts, but she knew this asshole was bad news. She inclines her head politely and murmurs a greeting to Tyen Zhe, then gestures at Keith and Shiro with a wing.

“Thank you for having us,” Shiro says, saving Keith from having to say anything with his unassailable diplomatic façade. Shiro has always had a talent for fending people off by telling them exactly what they want to hear. A lifetime of _I’m fine, sir_ must have honed that skill for him.

Lying isn’t among Keith’s skills, at least not this kind of polite lying. He’s great at skulking and hiding, and he’d be happy to apply some of his other skills and start throwing punches. Fuck, why hasn’t Gado murdered this shitstain? Why does Skarp still have a policy of only destroying empty buildings? If Keith took it upon himself to commit just a little tiny bit of arson, the dead wood in this house would go up in blazes before these monsters could get out.

“Glad to know not _everyone_ at the Summit is an idiot animal,” Tyen Zhe says. “Enjoy the party.”

Is Zhe’s hearing good enough to pick up the sound of Keith grinding his teeth together?

Shiro’s left hand rests in the small of Keith’s back, his touch warm against Keith’s bare skin. It startles Keith out of his seething for long enough to hear Shiro say, “We will!”

Then Shiro pushes until Keith is forced to move away. With Shiro’s hand firmly on his back, they wind through the clusters of other guests and end up in another, even grander room. It’s as dark as the atrium, but rectangular in shape, and all the tables in the room line the walls. Dancers twirl through the center, their wings moving in time with their legs. Keith can hear the slow, stately beat, but the melody is elusive, sometimes dipping down into a range he finds audible and sometimes rising above it.

Shiro grabs his hand and draws him into the crowd. Then his hand is on Keith’s waist and they’re dancing.

“Oh, you’re leading?” Keith asks, surprised. It’s not that Shiro is a bad dancer. He isn’t. It’s that Keith isn’t much for the kinds of places and social situations where people dance, so Shiro is the only person in the galaxy who knows how much he likes this. For a moment, Keith is hurt to think Shiro might have forgotten.

The last time they did this—the only other time they’ve done it in public—Shiro was getting married to somebody else.

Keith shoves that thought away. He’d rather think about how they’re alone and surrounded in this grandiose cesspool of criminals. At least he’ll have an opportunity to fix _that_.

“Well, I’m clearly not prepared to do the backwards-and-in-heels part,” Shiro says. How is he smiling? “Not sure it matters, since we can’t hear the music.”

“I think we’re missing some necessary appendages to follow along with all the steps,” Keith says, glancing around at the wings opening and closing.

Shiro pulls him in close and whispers in his ear. “Good thing we don’t plan to stay long. What’s your best guess for where we could… find some privacy?”

Weird way to put it. Keith squints at the dark upper reaches of the ballroom. Their best bet for incriminating documents or other evidence is a personal office or storage of some kind. “There’s a mezzanine in this room. Staircase behind you. If we can get up there, it probably leads to a second story elsewhere. From the outside, the house looked like—”

Shiro palms his ass in the middle of the ballroom.

What the fuck?

Oh. Most of Keith’s covert ops have involved lying in cold mud while covered in foliage, or hiding in small dark spaces for hours, waiting in silence to ambush some asshole. It’s been years since he’s worked with another person, and he’s never done anything in a social context like this. He and Shiro have to assume everything they say can be overheard, so Keith has to stop talking like he cased the place. And as the only two humans here, they’re unavoidably conspicuous. If they go upstairs, everyone is going to see.

Shiro is providing them with an easy cover story.

Though if Keith is any judge of Shiro’s expression—is he faking that, too?—he’s having fun. Keith should’ve known that sooner or later, Shiro would get revenge for the infrascreen.

Shiro yanks Keith forward by his hips until they crash together, then kisses him so deeply Keith has to bend backward and throw his arms around Shiro’s neck to hold the position. _Fucking showoff_. Shiro curves his metal hand possessively around Keith’s ass and winds his other hand into his hair. Now that Keith is clinging to Shiro, his fingers twisted in the thin strap of fabric across the back of Shiro’s neck and his own clothing slipping off his shoulders, the kiss takes a delicate turn. Shiro traces the arch of Keith’s upper lip with his tongue.

It’s not theatre. Nobody else knows Shiro did that.

Before Shiro can explore any further, Keith breaks away.

“Up,” Keith says. His breathlessness is real. “We should go up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Don't Get Around Much Anymore" has been performed by a lot of people, but I think my favorite version is Sam Cooke.


	12. to murder my love is a crime

“It’s draconian, these reparations they’re demanding,” Governor Zendig says, sitting heavily behind his desk. The peace talks ran long this afternoon, and he doubtless has less patience for them than most.

Krolia doesn’t care what he has patience for. She’s here to oust him.

His office is decorated in the same style as the rest of the Governor’s Mansion, the desk a massive imposition of smooth metal and the grey walls unmarked. There’s a single window off to the left, half-hidden behind heavy curtains in Galra purple. The weak, foggy sunlight from outside falls on Zendig’s desk, its surface uninterrupted by anything resembling work.

There’s a chair facing his desk, but Krolia leans back against the door instead, crossing her arms and propping one foot behind her.

“A century of payments,” Zendig grumbles, trying to prompt her to respond. “They’ll suck the Galra Republic dry before it’s even begun!”

“Three-quarters of the plant life on this planet is dead,” Krolia says, her voice flat. Zendig’s office is so featureless. There’s a bookshelf behind him, all its matching leatherbound books untouched. Print books are a luxury; most people read on their datapads. Zendig clearly doesn’t read at all.

“Plant life,” Zendig says, waving a blue hand. His claws are in disgusting shape, so long they’re curling at the ends. Years without manual labor, combat, or loved ones to touch will do that.

It won’t do any good to mention the unimaginable loss of sentient life, or the ongoing suffering of the survivors. Zendig isn’t capable of empathy.

“Is Hurog joining us?” Krolia asks. She doesn’t remove herself from the door. If Hurog is going to be late, he’ll have to get through her. Admittedly, she prefers his company to Zendig’s, but that’s meaningless. Krolia would prefer almost anyone to the oafish kleptocrat in front of her. “I wanted to discuss the timeline for the two of you removing yourselves and your staff from Taranis after the Summit concludes. The faster the better.”

“Hurog is probably off praying,” Zendig says, and then, directing his contempt at Krolia instead of his absent Lieutenant Governor, “He’s very spiritual.”

“Spiritual?” Krolia asks. That wasn’t a word used to describe many Empire officials. The Galra Empire cultivated fanatical devotion to its military; religious and philosophical questions didn’t conquer territory. Hurog had struck her as smart and ambitious. He probably had a future career in the Republic, so it would be good to know more about him. “What does he believe in, exactly?”

“Oh, he’s always droning on about the mysterious forces of the universe, quintessence and all that,” Zendig says. “We can harness them for Galra glory, blah blah. Who really listens? The glory’s in money and territory and weapons, any fool knows that. I told him he shouldn’t be upset about not succeeding me as governor of Taranis—the mines are depleted, whole planet’s a loss.”

“Zendig,” Krolia interrupts, curt.

He ignores her. “Hurog said there was still plenty of value here, but he’s into that Druid nonsense. He probably thought all that talk was a good way to speed up his promotion to Governor, back when the witch was in charge. Now that she’s gone, it’s become an embarrassing affectation.”

“Zendig,” Krolia says, her voice tight with rage. Of course it’s the Empire. Her whole life, it’s always the fucking Empire. “You void-brained piece of shit. Where is Hurog?”

 

* * *

 

Dashing up the stairs, Shiro nearly trips. It probably reads as drunk to anyone watching, which is good. Shiro feels drunk despite not having had any alcohol. With Keith’s hand in his, he can almost pretend this is real. They got a little too handsy while dancing at some inconsequential party and now they’re sneaking upstairs to have sex in someone else’s bed. It sounds like good dumb fun, something Shiro hasn’t had in years.

“Was it like this?” Shiro asks Keith. The question pops out of him, weightless as a champagne bubble, but he poses it soft and up close. They have to keep up their act, after all. “Your work?”

A glance down at their entwined hands. “No.”

Shiro tries not to feel disappointed by Keith shutting him out. Of course this isn’t the place to have a real conversation. They’re busy. They’re in danger. There’s a strong chance they’ll fail to find anything useful here, and worse, that they’ll get caught and killed. And if that doesn’t happen, Keith will still be confusing and distant and ready to fuck off to the other side of the galaxy as soon as this job ends. That wipes the smile off Shiro’s face. They exit the ballroom mezzanine into a hallway that stretches into darkness.

Keith tugs at his hand. He probably wants to let go now that no one can see them.

Shiro turns back, and even in the dark, he recognizes the quirk of Keith’s smile.

“Nothing has ever been like this.”

Oh. Heat rushes across Shiro’s skin. He squeezes Keith’s hand without really meaning to, then sets off down the hallway. No one can see them, but if anyone could, Shiro—beaming, his pulse pounding—would have no trouble convincing even the most suspicious observer that he and Keith are just two lovestruck dopes who came up here looking for a desk to defile.

They check six rooms before they find one that looks like an office. They creep inside and Keith kneels behind the desk and starts picking the locks on its drawers. Shiro crouches beside him, both of them striped in moonlight from the open windows. Tyenaver architecture doesn’t use glass, so there’s not much of a distinction between indoor and outdoor. The balcony beyond is probably an appealing place to stargaze for people who aren’t busy gathering evidence.

Keith opens the first drawer, pulls out a fistful of files, and hands them to Shiro. He takes another for himself and starts sorting through them.

“Can you read these?” Shiro asks, keeping his voice low.

“Yeah, of course, the print is huge,” Keith says. “Oh—you mean because the lights are off.”

Galra night vision. The moonlight is all Keith needs. Shiro sighs. “Do you really think we’re going to find something useful? What kind of criminal keeps paper records of their crimes?”

Keith holds out a hand in a sudden demand for silence. He tilts his head toward the hallway, then quietly puts all his and Shiro’s files back in the drawer and closes it. He crawls on hands and knees to pass under the desk, and Shiro’s pretty good at seeing in the dark for a human, but he wishes he were better.

Keith walks to the office door and hovers there for a moment, listening.

Shiro goes to stand by his side, and after a moment, Keith slides the door open silently and leans out, trying to hear something distant. An instant later, he’s back in the room, his hands on Shiro’s chest pushing him away from the door.

Okay. Can’t use the hallway to escape.

Shiro grabs his hand and heads for the balcony. They put their backs to the exterior wall of the office, out of sight of the window, and stay very still.

“Let me pour you a drink in my office,” Tyen Zhe is saying, his voice echoing down the hall.

“Ah.” If Shiro’s not mistaken, that’s Nwa, trailing behind him, sounding very uncomfortable. “How kind of you.”

“Don’t mention it,” Tyen Zhe says. “Business has been very good lately. It makes me happy to share the wealth.”

Next to Shiro, Keith steps away from the wall. He moves a little closer to the door to the office, trying to catch a glimpse of what’s happening inside. Shiro puts out an arm to stop Keith from leaning too far forward and getting caught.

Keith takes it as an invitation to plaster himself to Shiro, using Shiro’s body as an anchor and straining to look into the room beyond. Shiro closes his eyes and wills his body to be less noisy. He hopes the music drifting up from the ballroom, with all those frequencies he can’t hear, somehow sounds deafeningly loud to the Tyen.

It can’t be any louder than his heart.

Despite that, this position is good. If Shiro and Keith get caught out here, they can pretend they were making out. Shiro will blush and stutter and say something about stargazing. It sounds plausible. He’ll have all the right physiological reactions.

 _You should not be turned on right now_ , he chastises himself.

It’s useless, especially after he notices that Keith is, too. What a pair they make. If only they really _had_ defiled the desk, at least Shiro would have a clearer head and be able pay better attention. Instead, when he and Keith get caught and both die, they’ll have no one to blame but themselves.

Shiro has to stop thinking about this and start listening to the crucial, incriminating conversation that is happening right next to him.

“I had a contact in the administration, of course,” Tyen Zhe is saying. “But he’s on his way out.”

“Yes,” Nwa says. “The peace talks have really shaken things up.”

Shiro smiles. Nwa didn’t want to come here, but she’s a natural, already leading her prey into a trap. Good girl.

“Hmm, I’ve hardly noticed. Business is booming, and a shift in power’s not likely to change much for me. That said, I do like to have friends in the Governor’s Mansion.”

Tyen Zhe’s making it sound like he didn’t have much riding on the outcome of the peace talks. If he’s telling the truth, that means he wasn’t behind the murders. He’s still a criminal, and worth bringing to justice, but he’s not the person they’re looking for.

“Of course,” Nwa says. With shocking coyness, she adds, “What does that kind of friendship entail?”

“I’m a very generous friend,” Tyen Zhe says. Shiro can’t see him, but he’d bet Tyen Zhe just moved closer to Nwa. There’s something oily in his voice. “I expect hardly anything in return.”

“I’m sure,” Nwa says. “Oh, do you hear that? It’s so beautiful. I’d love to go back down and catching the end of the dancing.”

“Let me show you the view from the balcony first,” Tyen Zhe says. “It’s spectacular.”

“Wait,” Nwa cries. She must know they’re out here, somehow. She’s buying them time. “Tell me about your last friend. In the Governor’s Mansion, I mean. I need to know.”

Keith peels himself off Shiro and takes a silent step back. Shiro follows him, one foot at a time, trying not to let the wood creak beneath them.

“Oh, you don’t need to worry about him,” Tyen Zhe says.

“Because he’ll be off-planet soon?” Nwa presses. It’s harder to hear her now, both because she’s speaking quietly in deference to the subject matter and because Shiro and Keith have made it one room down the balcony. Shiro pulls Keith just inside the next door. It’s some kind of parlor, filled with the backless furniture the Tyen prefer. They hide themselves, poised to run if necessary. Shiro can feel the expansion of Keith’s ribcage next to his own.

“Because he won’t ever be off planet,” Tyen Zhe says.

“Oh,” Nwa says, genuine shock in her voice. “You’re made… arrangements, then?”

Tyen Zhe murmurs something too soft to hear, but it sounds affirmative. So he has a Galra crony who’s been looking the other way about his horrendous business. Not so surprising. But Tyen Zhe feels powerful enough that he’s planning to kill an Imperial official, and that’s a bad sign for the state of crime in Vi Tyenaver. If Shiro lives through this party, he’ll have to bring this up with the Joint Parliament.

Nwa and Tyen Zhe step out onto the balcony and their conversation grows louder, but it’s only about the stars. They stand on the balcony for long minutes. Shiro aches from keeping so still. Keith is unnaturally good at it, a living statue pressed up against Shiro, radiating heat.

Tyen Zhe and Nwa walk back into the office and out of earshot.

Keith exhales audibly. Then he shudders with silent laughter. It’s not funny, but Shiro shakes too, borderline hysterical. Keith’s hair smells good. Shiro puts his hands on Keith’s cheeks and kisses him on the lips once just for the relief of not getting caught.

Then Keith noses in closer, following Shiro as he pulls back, and Shiro has to stop and kiss him again, because it’s Keith and he’s right there and how can Shiro _not_ kiss him? It’s sweeter and slower this time, not a kiss for dodging death but a kiss for living, for staying alive, for finding out what’s next.

Keith puts both hands on the bare skin of Shiro’s back, flattening his palms to touch as much of Shiro as possible and stroking up and down. “This has been driving me crazy all night,” he mumbles, his face resting against Shiro’s neck.

Keith has been looking at him? Wanting him? Shiro’s already hard and that makes precome blurt out of the tip of his cock, wet and hot. Keith’s hands rove across his skin and Shiro shivers. They shouldn’t be doing this, but he won’t be the one to stop them. Not until he’s shown Keith he can give as good as he gets.

“Mm,” Shiro says, reaching for the slit in Keith’s skirt and the knife holstered on his thigh, running his fingers along the straps. “I’m familiar with the feeling.”

When his fingers find their way to Keith’s inner thigh, Keith sucks in a breath and presses his face to Shiro’s chest. “God, Shiro. What are we doing?”

Shiro runs a hand down his braid, then tips Keith’s face up until they’re almost kissing again. “I’ve never seen a cliff I didn’t want to dive off,” he says. “And neither have you.”

“You have to pull up at exactly the right moment or you crash,” Keith says, a smile crinkling the corners of his eyes and then vanishing. “Last time we crashed.”

“We pulled up too soon,” Shiro agrees, tracing the shape of Keith’s face. “It’s hard to get things right on the first try. It’ll be different this time.”

He leans down to taste Keith again, and Keith slots Shiro’s thigh between his legs and grinds down. Turns out they were sneaking upstairs to have good dumb fun after all.

From the office, there’s a thud. Nwa screams.

 

* * *

 

Shiro and Keith tumble out of the parlor onto the balcony. One door down, smoke pours out of the crackling office. Flames lick at the walls, and as the smoke shifts, Shiro catches flashes of Tyen Zhe rolling across the floor, locked in a fight with someone invisible. Nwa is trapped against a wall, the overturned desk and the flames keeping her from both the balcony and the door that leads to the hallway.

It’s their fault. He has to save her. Shiro pulls a fold of his dress in front of his mouth and nose and runs into the fire, leaping over Tyen Zhe and the desk. He lands and wobbles on his heels, but not so much that he falls. “I’m getting you out,” he yells at Nwa over the roar of the fire. She’s taller than him but eerily light over his shoulders.

Shiro turns to run back to the balcony and sees Keith ducking and swinging his sword at something invisible. Tyen Zhe is cowering in a corner, wings caging his body and one arm protecting his face.

As Shiro moves, something bangs into him—a limb, he thinks, not scaly and cold-blooded but something warmer and furrier. Tyen or Galra. He can’t fight back because he’s carrying Nwa. Shiro picks his way through the wreckage as fast as he can. The heat blisters his skin.

Shiro sets Nwa down on the balcony and she clings to him for an instant, wings spread wide. She’s coughing too much to speak, but when she finally does, it’s a raspy “Thank you.”

Inside the room, Keith is prowling the space in front of Tyen Zhe, sword poised to strike. Then, strangely, he goes still and lowers his sword. He pushes both sleeves of his dress down his arms. The fabric falls from his chest, his pale skin alternately wreathed in smoke or flickering orange light. He shimmies out of the rest of the dress, its silvery black fabric pooling around his ankles.

What the fuck is he doing?

Behind Keith, Tyen Zhe groans in pain. Keith whips the dress toward him. The fabric catches on something that isn’t there and outlines a form. Shoulders and an invisible hand at Tyen Zhe’s throat.

Clever. Shiro rips off his own fire-hazard dress and charges back in.

The murderer drops his hold on Tyen Zhe, who collapses, and throws himself at Shiro. His touch burns against Shiro’s throat, pulling at something buried deep inside him that doesn’t want to come free. Shiro fights, but his body won’t move. The fire rages around him, but he feels cold.

Keith slams into them, breaking the murderer’s hold and toppling all three of them to the burning floor.“Shiro, get out of here! Take Nwa and get out!” Keith’s voice is scratchy. He’s gasping.

“Not without you!”

Keith is locked in a struggle with the murderer, both of them rolling through flames, the scrap of fabric between them no longer useful for identifying the murderer’s movements. Is it the fire making him cough, or is the murderer’s hand at his throat? His blade must have been knocked aside in the fight.

Shiro searches the room with his gaze. Instead of the blade, the flames illuminate Tyen Zhe’s shriveled body, his mouth and eyes garishly open, his grey tongue lolling. He’s dead.

Shiro dives for Keith. He wrenches the invisible assailant off Keith, not sure what he’s grabbing, and pins his struggling opponent to the floor with a knee.

“Keith?”

The only sound is the roar of the fire. Panic surges up Shiro’s throat. Where is that fucking blade? There’s no time. Shiro can carry Keith. The murderer’s not going to make it out of here.

Shiro reaches down with his Altean prosthetic, snaps the stiletto off one heel, and stabs until the body beneath him stops moving. The invisibility flickers and glitches, and in the smoke-choked darkness, Shiro blinks down at the naked corpse of Lieutenant Governor Hurog.

He rolls off, scoops up Keith, and dashes for the balcony.

Nwa is waiting for him, wings spread wide and hands to her mouth.

“Nwa,Keith is—he’s—” A cough overtakes him. Or is it a sob? Keith is unmoving in his arms, as light as a dried leaf. Shiro can’t speak the end of that sentence. He can’t even think it.

Keith can’t be dead. They were finally going to talk.

Nwa wraps her arms around his waist. Is she trying to comfort him? He doesn’t want it. He doesn’t want anything. He can’t move.

Around them, Tyen Zhe’s house crashes and splinters in the fire.

“Hold on,” Nwa says, and pushes all three of them off the balcony. They drop precipitously, and then her wings catch the air and let them sail down into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is a line from Elvis Costello's "Man Out of Time." Not sure the rest of the lyrics really apply, but that one line has the most perfect, ambiguous pauses. Is it "to murder, my love, is a crime"? Or is "to murder _my love_ is a crime"? Who or what exactly is getting murdered here?


	13. nobody knows how loud your heart gets

“When Lance invited you to come see me, this was not what he meant,” Allura says crisply. Her voice emanates from somewhere. It’s dark. Keith can’t feel anything.

“What?” The question requires effort. His voice is a surprise to him, both louder and softer than expected. It echoes.

“It’s harder to connect like this without the Lions,” Allura says. “I hope you appreciate what I’m doing for you.”

“I do,” Keith says, even though he has no idea what she’s doing. And then, because he hasn’t had a chance to tell her yet and it’s been weighing on him, he blurts, “I’m sorry for leaving.”

“Oh, Keith. Which time are you sorry for, if I may ask?”

This is so confusing. Where are they? What happened? Keith remembers—Shiro? And a fire? And then it was cold. The thought is unpleasant and slips out of his consciousness. He focuses on Allura’s voice instead. She has a nice voice. She asked him a question.

“I only left once.”

“Twice now, darling.” She kisses his forehead. A strange feeling, since he wasn’t aware of having a forehead until then. The new awareness itches. “Don’t try it again.”

“I won’t,” he says loyally, not sure of what he’s promising. He blinks his eyes open and then shuts them against the glow. It’s too bright. He tries again, squinting cautiously, and sees Allura in front of him and nothing but darkness beyond. “Why are you wearing Paladin armor?”

That’s… not right for some reason. It was a long time ago, maybe. Or did he imagine it? All his memories slosh around, one flowing into the other. He wants to close his eyes again and lose consciousness. There’s so much darkness here. He could sink into it.

But he has things to do. There was something he was supposed to say to somebody. To _Shiro_. He can’t be here. He has to tell Shiro—

Allura pokes him in the shoulder.

“I suppose Paladin armor is how you picture me,” she says. “We’re in the astral plane, Keith. Do you know what happened?”

“Shiro,” he says, since it’s at the forefront of his mind. “I had to save Shiro. Did I? Is Shiro okay?”

“He’s alive,” Allura says, and relief washes over Keith. “You, however, are not.”

“What?”

“You died, Keith,” Allura says. Somehow her hand is warm on his cheek, even though neither of those things exists. “I’m here to put your consciousness back in your body, and I’m sorry to tell you this, but it is going to hurt.”

She puts both hands on his shoulders and presses down. His awareness of his body goes from an itch to a burn to a full-blown fire, and he screams.

 

* * *

 

Something warm and heavy presses up against Keith’s side and he groans and blinks himself awake. He aches all over. The room’s too bright. He closes his eyes again.

“Keith? Keith!”

“Shiro?”

“You’re awake!” Something presses into his neck. Shiro’s face, probably. “It’s been hours. You were in a healing pod all night after Allura revived you.”

“Mm,” Keith says, unwilling to remember that experience. He does manage to force his eyes open. He’s lying in a hospital bed with Shiro. And there are nine other people and one space wolf crowded into the room, watching. He jerks with surprise, then immediately has to close his eyes and put his head back down on the pillow. Moving. Bad.

“You caught the murderer,” Krolia says. “It was Lieutenant Governor Hurog.”

“And you and Shiro and Nwa exposed Tyen Zhe’s trade in Lawafluyed body parts, for which we are grateful,” Skama says.

“Mm,” Keith says again. All of that stirs something in his memory. Criminals, crimes. He does that. He tracks people down. He works one eye open and says, “Trials?”

“Not for those two,” Krolia says. “Hurog killed Tyen Zhe—Nwa tells me they were business partners and that their arrangement ended badly. And after that, Hurog was trapped in his office and died in the fire. We found just enough of him to make a positive ID.”

There’s something wrong with her tone, but Keith is too tired to figure out what it is. Krolia approaches his bed and puts her hand on his. “I had the remains of the house searched and they found this.”

When he glances down, it’s his blade. Her blade. Theirs. He smiles. She leaves it on his bedside table and runs a hand through his hair. It’s matted. Her touch stirs up the smell of stale smoke in the antiseptic hospital room. “The end of the Summit has been postponed for two quintants due to all this upheaval, but we’re going to continue with the talks soon. I’ll be taking over for Shiro. All you two need to do is rest.”

“The Joint Parliament is very grateful to both of you,” Nwa says. She and Skama incline their heads and then make their exit.

“We should leave them,” Allura says to the others, and her voice makes Keith comes more fully awake.

“You… saved me.”

She smiles. Fatigue rings her eyes. “I did. Let’s not make a habit of it.”

“Now Pidge and I are the only Paladins Allura hasn’t brought back to life,” Hunk says. “Although Pidge and Allura did do a weird quintessence experiment, so maybe it’s just me.”

“You’re the only sensible one, Hunk,” Allura says.

Keith heaves himself up on his elbows and blinks back the encroaching darkness. Shiro puts a hand on his arm but doesn’t stop him. “What’s…” Keith trails off. They all look a little different somehow. Maybe his brain isn’t processing things right yet. “What happened?”

“Hurog completely drained you. Normally I draw quintessence from the environment,” Allura says. “Taranis is still depleted, so I needed another source to restore you. We all gave a little.”

She touches her hair self-consciously. The white is now broken by a black streak. Keith’s gaze jumps from Paladin to Paladin. All his former teammates now have a white streak in their hair. Shiro, lying in bed beside him, has black bangs. Keith grabs a handful of his own hair, the half-undone braid a mass of tangles, and sees a stripe of white winding through the black.

“You…” The sight doesn’t make sense. Keith blinks, dizzy, and then Shiro’s catching him around the shoulders before he falls back into his pillow. “For me?”

“Yeah, for you, you dope,” Pidge says. “It’s almost like we like you and care about you and want you to be in our lives. Weird, I know.”

“Aww,” Hunk says. “Don’t be too hard on him, I’m sure resurrection is confusing.”

“I only did it because this white streak makes me look mysterious and cool,” Lance says. Melenor, at his feet, demands to be picked up. Lance complies and she reaches for his hair and grips two handfuls of it. “Hey, kiddo, be gentle. I need that to stay attached to my head so Allura will go on a date with me.”

“We’re married,” Allura says, smiling. “You’re holding our child.”

There’s a round of sighs, groans, and laughter. They’re all joking around like—like it’s seven years ago—like he didn’t just die—and Keith is still stuck on the part where they all gave up some of their own life force so he could live. He swallows around a lump in his throat. His eyes sting. What do you do with that kind of gift?

“We should probably let Keith rest,” Shiro says. He squeezes Keith’s shoulder while Keith stares down into his lap.

“No,” Keith blurts, looking around wildly. He hasn’t done the right thing yet. He aches and his brain’s all foggy, but he makes a frantic guess. “I, um… thank you. All of you. For everything. I don’t know what to say. Can I—can we… hug?”

He finishes with a helpless little shrug.

The question hangs in the air until Hunk laughs and says, “Thought you’d never ask.”

Shiro’s still holding Keith, since Keith can’t really sit up under his own power, but Hunk wraps his arms around both of them. Pidge, Lance, Allura and Melenor follow suit, and then his mom and Coran, and at some point he feels Kosmo poke his snout into the pile. They’re crushing him a little, but he doesn’t want them to let go.

 

* * *

 

“Are you alright?” Keith asks Shiro after everyone leaves.

“I’m sorry. Are you—a person who recently died—asking _me_ how _I_ feel?”

“Yes.”

They’re lying on their sides, face to face. This hospital bed was built for someone with wings, and Shiro is grateful for how wide it is. Grateful, also, for the fact that he crawled in next to Keith while Keith was still unconscious, and Keith hasn’t kicked him out yet.

“I’ve been better,” Shiro says. He was badly burned in the fire, but the healing pod took care of it. He’s tired from whatever Allura did with the quintessence, but he can hardly complain. “But I’ve also been a lot worse. Like, say, when you died.”

“It was bad when you died, too,” Keith says, and his voice is so sleepy that Shiro can’t tell if he’s sympathetic or defensive.

“I know. I’m sorry.” They’ve been separated too many times. Shiro kisses his temple and resolves to let him rest. “Go to sleep, Keith. I’ll be here.”

Shiro turns off all the lights in the room and lays his head on the pillow. He’s tired but not sleepy. That’s okay. Lying in the dark next to Keith is all he has the capacity for, anyway. This is the only place in the galaxy he wants to be. He waits for Keith’s breathing to even out.

“Shiro?”

Still awake, then. “Yeah?”

“Do you ever think about what went wrong between us?”

“All the time.”

“Me too,” Keith says, entirely unnecessarily. The seven years he spent traversing the galaxy like a knight errant speak volumes on that count. “I was so angry when I first saw you here. Angry at you, angry at my mom, angry at myself. All I could think about was how you broke my heart. But since seeing the others again and realizing how much I hurt them without knowing it, I can’t stop thinking… maybe I broke _your_ heart.”

Shiro inhales and feels something loosen in his chest. He hadn’t been sure Keith would ever understand that. He reaches blindly for Keith and strokes the hair behind his ear. “Unfortunately, I think the blame falls on both of us. You hurt me, yes, but we hurt each other. I’ll always be sorry for it.”

“Fuck,” Keith says, followed by a shaky exhalation. “I feel like shit. I’m so sorry.”

Shiro lets his fingers follow the line of Keith’s ear, pausing to feel the pulse in his throat. “Me too. I shouldn’t ever have married him. I did wrong by him and worse by you. But we’re here, we’re alive, we’re together. We can pick up the pieces.”

“I still don’t understand why,” Keith says. “That’s what scares me.”

“You know when you first go on a spacewalk?” Shiro asks. “That first time you’re floating alone in the universe, and it’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen, but also you’re so small and you’re scared shitless?”

Keith huffs with laughter. “Yeah.”

“That’s how I felt about you,” Shiro says. It’s easier to say all this in the dark. “You were ready to die for me. It was… it was a kind of wonder I couldn’t comprehend. And it was terrifying. I almost killed you, and you…” Turns out, even years after the fact, Shiro can’t talk about this without his throat closing up. A tear runs across the bridge of his nose and hits the pillow. “I’m so sorry, Keith. I didn’t know how to talk to you about it. It felt like everything I could say was too small, or all wrong, or asking you for more.”

Keith wipes a tear from Shiro’s face with the tip of his index finger, his aim unerring despite the lack of light in the room. “I didn’t know how to talk to you about it, either, clearly.”

“And then we weren’t talking, and there was this huge incomprehensible _thing_ between us, and it felt insurmountable. I was desperately lonely, and he was just… there.”

“Yeah,” Keith says, his voice thick like he’s on the verge of crying. Shiro gropes for his shoulder and squeezes. “You had gone through something awful, and all I could see was that I told you I loved you and you never brought it up again. I left you alone to deal with all that. I’m sorry, Shiro.”

“After the wedding, without you around, it was like the whole world was empty,” Shiro says. “Like the Empire had come back and sucked the life out of the whole planet. I put it all together, but by then it was too late.”

“It’s not too late,” Keith says. “We’re not dead yet.”

“And we’ve never let that stop us, anyway,” Shiro says. The pillow under his cheek is wet. He smiles.

“You know it was all I could think about, after I died? That I hadn’t really told you. That you might not know,” Keith says. “I love you, Shiro.”

Shiro kisses him, wet and warm and tender. “I love you too, Keith.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title is a line from the Lucius song "How Loud Your Heart Gets," which is... extremely sheith-y :')


	14. pointed your headlamp toward the horizon

“How are you feeling?”

Shiro hovers over Keith, sitting up in the hospital bed like it’s effortless, and Keith lets his eyelids close again. He’s so tired and weak that it hurts just to lie in bed.

“If you’re up for it,” Shiro continues, “there is that giant bathtub in my room.”

How far is Shiro’s room? Doesn’t matter. Kosmo can get him there. The wolf has taken up residence on his other side, opposite Shiro, and Keith scratches him behind the ears and smiles. “Are you naked in this bathtub scenario, or just me?”

“Whatever you want,” Shiro promises, and Kosmo takes them to the bathroom.

Obviously Keith wants Shiro to be naked. It’s astonishing that Shiro even has to ask. Keith resolves to make his feelings clearer in the future.

He stops, seated on the rim of the tub, and puts one hand on the wall for support. A future. With Shiro.

It’s been a long time since Keith allowed himself to fantasize about that.

“You alright?” Shiro kneels in front of him. He puts his hands on Keith’s knees. “I’m sorry, it’s too much, I shouldn’t have suggested it.”

“No,” Keith says, panicked. Shiro shouldn’t feel bad. “I just… it was the spacewalk thing, you know?”

“You looked up and saw the vastness of the universe?” Shiro says, smiling.

“Forgot how to breathe for a second,” Keith agrees, caressing Shiro’s face. He’s so fucking beautiful all the time. It makes Keith stupid with awe. If they spend the rest of their lives together, he’s gonna have to get used to spending most of his time a little drunk on it.

“We can go as slow as you want,” Shiro says. He puts a hand under the faucet to test the water temperature, and then comes back to Keith, taking the hem of his t-shirt in hand. “Lift your arms, let’s get this off.”

“I don’t—”

“Need help?” Shiro says, expertly divesting Keith of his shirt. “Sure. Of course not. Dying was only a minor inconvenience to you, and you are fully capable of doing all of this yourself. Indulge me anyway.”

“—want to go slow,” Keith finishes, lowering his arms. He flushes when Shiro smiles at him, then looks down and jams his thumbs into the waistbands of his sweats and his underwear, trying to pull them both down at once. Shiro steadies him with a hand on his waist, then helps pull Keith’s clothes down his calves and away from his feet.

Now Keith is naked, his deathgrip on the edge of the tub the only thing keeping him from faceplanting on the floor or falling backward into the water. He caught a nasty strain of Zekrisal flu on a mission once. His blood pressure kept dropping with no warning. It fucked up his whole sense of balance. Couldn’t walk two steps without fainting. Had to hole up in a shack in the woods and sweat it out for days. Probably would have died if Kosmo hadn’t nudged a couple of bottles of water into his hands and then whined until he drank them. When Keith finally pulled through, he had tremors all over and a fast, erratic heartbeat from severe dehydration. Coming back from the dead is sort of like that.

Except Shiro’s here.

“I’m gonna pick you up,” Shiro says, and before Keith can protest that he doesn’t need that, he can do it himself, Shiro has lifted him up and lowered him into the bathwater so smoothly there wasn’t even a splash.

Shiro’s t-shirt is soaked, water spreading from the sleeves down his sides.

“You said you’d take your clothes off,” Keith says, flicking water at his chest.

Shiro strips without another word, peeling off his t-shirt and pajama bottoms with effortless motion. Keith is caught between envy and lust. He’d love to be able to stand up so easily himself, but since that’s off the table, he’ll settle for watching Shiro’s muscles ripple under his skin.

Shiro climbs into the tub behind him and settles Keith between the vee of his legs. Good. Not that Keith was worried about passing out and drowning in the tub, but… good. This is exactly where he wants to be.

Shiro picks up the handheld sprayer and wets Keith’s hair. Keith turns around abruptly and gets a face full of spray.

“Keith!”

Keith splutters. “What are you d—”

“Washing your hair?” Shiro says, holding the sprayer off to the side, his giant shoulders adorably hunched in apology.

“Oh,” Keith says. “Oh, we’re… really doing this. Taking a bath.”

“Yes?”

“So what, I just… sit here? And let you do all the work?”

Now Shiro is pressing his lips together in a way that means he’s trying not to laugh. His eyes crinkle. “Is that so unbearable?”

“You don’t have to wash my hair, Shiro.” Keith wants to continue his list of things Shiro doesn’t have to do, like help him walk or get undressed, but he chokes on the knowledge that right now, there are some things he really can’t do by himself. Probably including washing his hair. When he was stricken with the flu in the woods, nobody cared if his hair was clean, least of all him.

“What if I want to?” Shiro says. “Would you let me?”

“I… guess?”

“Well, I want to,” Shiro says, like it’s the simplest thing in the world. He turns Keith around and carefully tips his head back so the warm water from the sprayer runs down his scalp. If Keith stops thinking about this as something he’s incapable of doing for himself, and starts thinking of it as something that Shiro wants to do for him, he can admit that it feels… pleasant. Still kind of weird, not knowing what to do with his hands. But nice-weird.

Shiro turns off the sprayer and pours shampoo into his palms. Keith recognizes the scent from Shiro’s hair. Apples, he thinks. Something clean and sweet.

“You took care of me all week,” Shiro says, threading his fingers into Keith’s hair.

“I didn’t, really. I mostly stood around. Like I said, the idea of you needing a bodyguard is—”

“Keith. You died. I had to watch.”

Oh. _Oh_. This is about Shiro’s feelings, too. Shiro’s been trying to tell him and Keith hasn’t been listening. When Shiro died the first time, Keith went crazy for months, looking for him. If they’d had this kind of relationship back then—a naked, take-a-bath-together kind of relationship—Keith probably would have done something like this after finding him.

Shiro begins to massage his scalp, and Keith relaxes into his touch, humming with pleasure.

“Good,” Shiro says, his hands working wonders. “Let me take care of you.”

“I think if it were possible for me to turn into goo, it would be happening,” Keith tells him, eyes closed and voice slow. He feels Shiro’s silent laugh as a rumble in his chest.

“I’m pretty glad that’s not happening,” Shiro says. “As useful as it might be in a fight. Kinda like you the way you are."

Shiro rinses the shampoo out with warm water, then repeats the whole cycle with conditioner. Keith is boneless by the end, unable to remember why he ever resisted this. Shiro combs his fingers through the whole length of Keith’s hair, exercising a kind of patience that Keith doesn’t have for himself most days.

Eventually, Shiro helps him stand and then wraps him in a towel, a process Keith makes as difficult as possible by kissing every part of Shiro within reach. But he’s neither fast nor agile in his current state, and Shiro gets the better of him eventually. Keith squeezes out his hair into the tub and together they make it to Shiro’s bed.

Keith plans to lie down, but Shiro moves behind him, so they end up sitting in the same way as in the bath. Still blissed out from the bath, Keith doesn’t care as long as he doesn’t have to support himself.

Shiro plays with his hair aimlessly for a while, or at least that’s what Keith thinks he’s doing until he makes a frustrated sound.

“Shiro?”

“I was going to braid it.”

“Three parts,” Keith instructs, and he feels Shiro dividing up his hair. “Left over middle. Then right over the new middle. Then keep going.”

“Oh,” Shiro says after a moment. “Not as complicated as I thought.”

Shiro is silent in concentration and Keith wishes for a mirror so he could watch what’s happening behind him. Is Shiro biting his lip? He bites his lip when he concentrates on the displays during the talks.

The braid takes him far longer than it would take Keith or Krolia, but he gets to the end eventually. Then he extricates himself, leaving Keith leaning against the pillows, and goes to search through his clothes. He comes back triumphant with a black hair elastic in his hand.

“Wh—” Keith starts and then puts it together. Shiro has no need to own hair elastics. Keith’s went missing the night Shiro was drunk. “You _thief_.”

“I’m returning it,” Shiro says. He inexpertly applies it to the end of Keith’s uneven braid, and all Keith can do is smile.

He runs his hand over the end of the braid. “Thanks, Shiro.”

“My next braid will be better,” Shiro promises.

“A next one, huh?” Keith settles down into Shiro’s bed, ridiculously relieved to be lying down again. He hardly did anything, but he’s a wreck.

Shiro lies down and pulls Keith to him until they’re nose to nose. “If you’ll let me.”

Keith’s not the only one thinking about the future. The look on his face right now must be so goofy, but he can’t help it. “Yeah.” He lays a hand on Shiro’s chest, his fingers splayed over the heart. “I’ll let you.”

Shiro circles his fingers around Keith’s wrist, innocent and undemanding, touch for touch’s sake. He’s so generous. It gives Keith an idea, not for the future, but for right now.

 

* * *

 

Keith is warm and alive under his touch, but Shiro can’t get it out of his head, how light and brittle Keith felt in his arms after death. His chest seizes. He strokes his thumb over the inside of Keith’s wrist, where his pulse beats steady and strong.

Keith drags his hand from Shiro’s chest down to his stomach. He pauses just under Shiro’s navel, brushing the sparse trail of hair there, as white as the hair on Shiro’s head.

“Alive for thirty-two hours and already angling for sex,” Shiro teases.

“Just picking up where we left off at the party.” Keith comes in for a kiss. Shiro beats him there, closing the tiny sliver of distance between them so Keith doesn’t have to move even that much. He remembers waking up from death, how much it hurt, how overwhelming everything was. They’ll take this slow.

“Oh, you remember that, huh?” Shiro says, trying and failing to conceal how quick and shallow his breath is coming. Keith’s hand hovers just above his dick, and Shiro forces himself not to arch into Keith’s touch. Instead, he taps the tip of Keith’s nose with a finger. “I seem to remember from half an hour ago that you can’t sit up by yourself.”

“Don’t need to sit up,” Keith says, a mulish set to his jaw and a spark in his eyes.

Shiro can’t back down from the challenge. He makes a last-ditch effort at being responsible. “Exactly. You stay in bed, right where you are, and I do all the work. No sudden movements, okay?”

“Give me a reason to stay in bed, then.”

Shiro smiles, kisses him again, and sits up. Gingerly, he rolls Keith onto his back so Shiro can straddle his thighs. He’d like to give Keith a reason to stay forever, but that’s asking a lot from one blowjob. Still, Shiro’s gonna give it a shot. He wraps his left hand around Keith’s cock, idly slicking liquid from the head down the shaft, and licks his lips.

Keith isn’t panting yet, but Shiro can hear him breathing. He didn’t know that was his favorite sound until he couldn’t hear it anymore, and he resolves not to take it for granted as he lowers his mouth to Keith’s cock, drawing the foreskin back just enough to lave his tongue over the slit.

Keith sucks in a breath. Good.

Shiro takes Keith’s cock into his mouth, letting his lips meet his hand, and sets up a torturously gentle rhythm with both. He can deepthroat, and he likes facefucking, but they’re both in a delicate condition. Right now is for tenderness. Shiro glances up at Keith’s face, flushed and bright-eyed, biting his bottom lip and willing Shiro to go faster.

Shiro holds his gaze. _I could do this all day. Every day. For the rest of our lives_. Does Keith know that? Shiro’s going to make damn sure he understands.

Shiro brings his Altean hand to Keith’s hip, stroking circles from his hipbone down to the top of his thigh, his tongue mirror the movement, slow and inexorable.

Keith cards his fingers through Shiro’s hair, curving his hand around and trying to press Shiro into going faster. Shiro ignores him. Keith’s hips twitch, a silent plea for more. Shiro ignores him. Shiro’s own cock throbs, and he ignores that, too. He has patience and focus to spare.

“Shiro,” Keith says, and it’s not a whine. Keith’s gaze falls on him like a touch. Like a promise. “I’m gonna suck you off, next time.”

It takes no effort to imagine the scene because it’s an old favorite: Keith’s hair falling forward, the silken ends brushing his skin; Keith’s lips stretched around him. The most erotic words in that sentence are _next time_. Shiro’s cock drips against his thigh.

When Keith’s breath starts to come in ragged and uneven, Shiro brings his Altean hand between Keith’s thighs, cradles his balls, and rubs a finger against the sensitive skin behind them. Keith cries out and bucks his hips, his orgasm spilling hot and sudden over Shiro’s tongue. Shiro swallows it down and presses a kiss to the inside of Keith’s thigh. He lays his head there and smiles up at Keith.

“Come here,” Keith says, and Shiro goes.

He puts himself within easy reach, not wanting to make Keith do any more work than necessary, and that turns out to be a hilarious overestimation of his own stamina. Keith wraps a hand around his dick, kisses him, and gives him a few quick strokes. It’s artless, but it’s Keith, so it’s perfect. That’s all Shiro’s ever really wanted anyway. He comes, messy and sudden and so, so good, all over both of them and the sheets.

Shiro laughs softly, too happy to be embarrassed. “Sorry. Next time’ll last longer.”

“Don’t apologize. This is the best sex of my life.”

“Your thirty-two-hour life?”

Keith blushes and presses his face into the pillow.

Shiro is flattered and heartbroken all at once. All those years apart and Keith never had anyone, not even a one-night stand? The thought chills him with loneliness, even though Keith is right there. He kisses Keith all over his face, heedless of smearing the mess between them.

“Take another nap and when you wake up, I’ll make it the second-best sex of your life,” Shiro says.

Keith huffs. “Maybe I’ll make it the best sex of _your_ life.”

“I’m sure you will,” Shiro says, utterly sincere. He gets a tissue and wipes them both down. Then he presses a kiss to Keith’s temple. “You should rest. The sooner you recover, the sooner you can do things to me.”

“You’re so good at motivational speeches,” Keith tells him. He closes his eyes and drops off to sleep.

 

* * *

 

Krolia expected the exposure of Tyen Zhe’s horrifying business to cast a pall over Vi Tyenaver, but instead the fire at his house inspires fierce rejoicing in the streets. Even long after the news comes out, the city feels different. Are people speaking more loudly and freely? Is she imagining that?

It’s heady, being part of such a change. There are so many planets like this one, torn apart by the Empire. Krolia could live a hundred lifetimes and never fix them all.

But she’s not working alone.

The Summit concludes with a draft of the constitution, a new map, and a date for the first election in Vi Tyenaver. Shiro should be there for the last session, since he did so much of the work. But even if the general populace is dancing on Tyen Zhe’s grave, Shiro’s suspected involvement in the fire that killed Tyen Zhe and Lieutenant Governor Hurog—the _fire_ , Krolia had insisted, the _accidental_ fire, refusing to hear anything else Shiro and Nwa tried to tell her—is too rich for the tastes of some Joint Parliament members. They shouldn’t regret the deaths of two such butchers, but the trouble with diplomacy as a career is that Krolia can no longer simply punch people when they’re wrong. Regardless, Shiro graciously excuses himself from his position, citing his health as a reason for handing over the reins.

It’s probably good for him to spend some time in bed with Keith, but that’s none of Krolia’s business.

Krolia demands that Shiro and Keith be permitted at the final celebration, an afternoon gathering in the restored central square of the city, open to the public. There’s a carnival atmosphere, with street food everywhere, public games and performances, and strange music that Krolia can only partly hear.

Shiro and Keith show up late enough to avoid getting announced, Shiro in a black suit and Keith in uniform, both looking a little worn down. Keith’s hair is in a lumpy braid, but he’s smiling as he leans on Shiro for support.

That, right there, is as much of a triumph as peace on Taranis.

Krolia watches them greet the other Paladins, and then a few Joint Parliament members. Skama’s whole den is there, his two partners and their eleven children, and Nwa brought her mate. Skama and Nwa appear very taken with Melenor.

Keith spies someone off in the corner of the square and tugs at Shiro’s arm until Shiro helps him cross the square. There’s a green Lawafluye with violet feathers there, one Krolia strongly suspects is a person of interest in multiple unsolved bombing and arson cases, but then, so are her son and the man he’s in love with.

Gado doesn’t stay long, and soon Shiro and Keith are at loose ends again. Keith spots her, sends Shiro off to join the other Paladins, and begins to make slow progress through the crowd. She meets him halfway, pulling out a stool from one of the many round tables set up in the square. It’s sized for one of the native species, meaning Keith’s feet don’t touch the ground, but he looks happy to sit down anyway.

Krolia pulls out a stool of her own and sits with him. She opens her mouth to ask how he’s feeling, and he says, “Fine. You were right.”

“I didn’t say anything,” she says.

He rolls his eyes. “I was mad at you when you brought me here, but you were right. Is that better?”

“I don’t know,” she says with honesty. “I do still regret lying to you, Keith. I don’t want to do that again, not ever.”

He nods. “You won’t have to. I won’t put you in that position again.”

She reaches for him and squeezes his hand. “How are you?”

“Tired,” he says. “But happy.”

“Good,” she says. “Those hours you were dead… I didn’t know what to do with myself. I could have burned this whole city down.”

“Kind of contrary to your purpose here.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered,” she says, then shakes her head to clear away the darkness. “I’m glad you were with Shiro. He did what I would have done.”

Keith stares at her, narrowing his eyes even though it’s a rare sunny moment. Krolia observes his expression and pinpoints the exact moment he figures it out.

“Oh—that’s—I should probably talk to him about that.”

“But not here.”

“No, obviously not here, Mom.” Keith pauses, and in a less exasperated tone, he says, “Thanks for telling me.”

“Of course. We’re not keeping secrets anymore.” She pats his hand and withdraws her own. “When’s your next mission? I’d like to see you again before you leave.”

“I, uh, haven’t accepted any new missions,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “I thought maybe I’d take a little break.”

Krolia’s been waiting to hear that for a long time. “I’d say you’ve earned it. Any particular plans?”

Keith touches the end of his braid and casts his gaze across the square to where Shiro is standing. The soft smile that curves his lips isn’t for Krolia; her heart melts all the same.

 

* * *

 

Nwa takes them to a spot far outside the city where the river is palisaded by dark stone cliffs on one side. Shiro spreads out a blanket on the opposite bank. Keith sits, sticks his legs out in front of him and nods at his lap.

“Look at you, sitting up,” Shiro says. He sprawls on his back, forcing the rest of the group to give them space, and pillows his head on Keith’s thighs. “I’m so proud.”

Keith affects a sudden interest in the hideous floral print of the blanket. He can’t handle Shiro talking to him like that in public, even if it’s just a joke—which it isn’t, because it’s Shiro, and he makes bad jokes all the time, but never about that.

Kosmo curls up on Keith’s other side, occupying every last spare inch of their blanket.

Pidge shakes her head at the sight of them and spreads out another blanket. “Fine, be gross together.”

“They were always gross together, even as friends,” Hunk says, patting her on the shoulder. “It’s better this way.”

Melenor hurtles in from somewhere and throws herself on Kosmo, who very patiently accepts her affections.

“Be nice to the wolf,” Allura admonishes while she and Lance squish in with Pidge and Hunk. Her path through the woods is marked by trees unfurling tiny green leaves and budding plants springing up in the wells of her footsteps, as though she’s been reviving so much of the world lately that new life now trails in her wake by accident. After she arrives, the air is perfumed with spring.

Coran spreads out a third blanket and Krolia, Skama, and Nwa join him, and they’re settled in just in time to watch as the first tiny figure goes sailing over the cliff edge, wings spread wide. She makes a couple of leisurely zigzags through the air on her way down and lands neatly in a cordoned off area downriver. A cheer goes up from the crowd surrounding the landing area and another echoes down from the clifftop.

“That’s my niece Ley,” Nwa says. She has one wing extended overhead to keep the unusually bright sunlight out of her eyes.

“It was a beautiful flight,” Shiro tells her. “Very nicely done.”

“Looks fun,” Keith says, glancing down at Shiro and sharing a secret smile.

“Looks terrifying,” Hunk says. “But sure.”

“At last, a human with the sense to stay on the ground,” Skama says, and then the conversation quiets down as another glider shoots into the air.

They stay there all afternoon, watching dozens of events, everyone in the group wandering in and out to stretch their legs or bring back refreshments. At some point, Keith looks around and sees that everyone is either dozing or absent except for himself and Shiro.

“Hey,” he says, nudging Shiro with one thigh. “Come up here.”

Shiro sits up, takes stock of the situation, and lays Keith flat with a kiss. Keith grabs his face and kisses back, until they’re writhing against each other and it’s no longer a good idea to continue. They break apart and flop onto their backs, flushed and grinning.

A distant cheer rises and falls. Keith glances at Shiro. “The Coalition ship’s leaving tomorrow.”

“Yeah.”

“You going back to Earth?”

Shiro sits up. Keith pushes himself up and sits cross-legged. They should be able to look each other in the eyes for this. He pulls Shiro’s hands into his and rests them in his lap.

“The Coalition has… suggested I take a leave of absence,” Shiro says.

“What?” Keith says, offended on Shiro’s behalf. “But you were _great_. There’s a proposed constitution and an upcoming election. The Galra are gonna pay reparations. The Summit was a success. How can they be mad about that?”

“It’s not that. It’s the surrounding circumstances.”

“These fucking _assholes_ who haven’t been in a fight in decades—or ever—and still want to tell us what to do,” Keith says, gritting his teeth. Shiro lifts one shoulder and tips his head to the side like he’s about to contest that, so Keith stares him down and says, “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“It wasn’t really much of a fight at that point—”

“You didn’t. Do _anything_. Wrong.”

Shiro squeezes his hands. “I’m okay, I think. But thanks.”

“It’s just the truth.”

“Don’t waste too much anger on this. The Coalition’s just being cautious for a while until that news cools off. It’s a smart move. I’m not fired.”

“Good,” Keith says. Who’s on the governing council of the Coalition? Iverson? An Olkari? A Balmeran? Probably some of those Alteans from the Colony. Maybe Pidge’s dad. Keith doesn’t care. He could take them.

“I was thinking of taking some leave anyway,” Shiro says. “So it’s okay. I’ll figure out something to do with myself. What about you? You probably have another mission lined up. You’re probably about to wormhole to the other side of the galaxy for further adventures.”

Keith shakes his head. “I’m taking some leave, too.”

“Good. Seems like you could use it, after this.”

“They never sent me anywhere good, anyway. Just a bunch of high-security complexes for rich criminals, or wilderness hidey-holes. There’s a lot more of the galaxy I’d like to see. I was thinking of buying a ship, actually.”

“I heard you had a line on a confiscated Athahari XT 500,” Shiro jokes.

“Well, sleeping in an XT 500’s pretty uncomfortable. I’d want something with a real bed,” Keith says. They spent all night entangled. It has been six hours since they last had sex. Minutes since they kissed. Keith is pretty fucking sure Shiro is going to say yes. Somehow asking still makes his heart race. No wonder he was too much of a coward to do things right all those years ago.

Driving a hoverbike off a cliff has _nothing_ on this.

He smiles at Shiro. His pulse accelerates. “Preferably a bed that sleeps two.”

“Mm,” Shiro says. “Kosmo does take up a lot of space.”

Fuck, Shiro’s poker face is unreal. Was that a joke? Or does Shiro really not see where this conversation is headed? Doesn’t matter. Keith can’t slow down now.

“Will you come with me?”

Shiro’s face breaks into a grin. “Thought you’d never ask. Yes. Of course. Yes.”

Keith’s relief nearly renders him weightless. It’s euphoric. “Good. Because I’m never going anywhere without you ever again if I can help it.” He exhales and punches Shiro in the bicep. “Don’t fuck with me like that, it’s terrifying.”

Shiro grabs him and pulls him in. He’s expecting some resistance, but Keith is powerless to provide it, so Shiro ends up flat on his back with Keith on top of him. “I wanted you to say it.” He plants a kiss on Keith’s lips. “I never want to go anywhere without you, either. You should quit your job and be my full-time bodyguard.”

“You should quit _your_ job and be a space cowboy with me.”

“A what?”

“It’s what Pidge called it,” Keith says. “My work. You don’t need a bodyguard.”

“Don’t involve me in this,” Pidge calls, and Keith closes his eyes and presses his forehead to Shiro’s. The others are here. They might have been here for most of this. He wasn’t paying attention to anything but Shiro.

“We’ll talk about this,” Shiro says. “Sorry for pulling you down here. I should help you get up.”

“Nah,” Keith says. “I’m good right here.”

He relaxes, letting Shiro take all his weight, warmed by the sun on his back and Shiro beneath him. The river ripples by, occasionally eclipsed by distant cheering, but not so loud that he can’t hear the others chatting and laughing, and under it all, Shiro’s breath and pulse. Wherever they go next, Keith will be able to hear that sound. The thought gives him a feeling of lightness so unfamiliar that it takes him a beat to identify it. It’s peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title is a line from The Mountain Goats' "Jenny." (Title aside, the whole rest of the song applies. I might have called this chapter "you pointed your headlamp toward the horizon / we were the one thing in the galaxy God didn't have his eyes on" if it weren't so long!)
> 
> This is the end of the fic proper, but there is a little tiny epilogue coming tomorrow. Thank you to everyone who has commented so far! I'm hoping to get back to you all soon <3
> 
> And I'm on [twitter](http://twitter.com/_cadignan/), if you're into that sort of thing.


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